


The Wolf Brothers of Kaer Morhen

by zombiephilosophers



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brothers, Eventual Happy Ending, Explicit Language, F/F, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Fae Magic, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sibling Bonding, Siblings, Very critical of the witcher traditions and trials, because these kiddos fucking deserve it, death of children, non graphic violence towards children, the trials are canonically horrific
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:27:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 35,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25646569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombiephilosophers/pseuds/zombiephilosophers
Summary: Vesemir had found the little boy in a market south of Riedbrune. His eyes were glassy, and the sign hanging from his neck was obscene. It took a lot, but he didn't punch the seller. He tried not to hurt humans where possible, but he was a monster slayer after all and so seriously considered it. Taking the boy meant that this year's intake for the trials would be larger than usual, but that only meant more witchers in the end. He held the little hand in his, and started to tell the boy stories about heroes and monsters, fights and battles - and of course, witchers.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 16





	1. The Trial of the Grasses

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 1 - this is the hard chapter. I’m trigger warning the shit out of this. I love the stories of the witcher, the world that Sapkowski created, but fuck me was I horrified to learn about the trials, the old witchers and the traditions of Kaer Morhen. This chapter is about life before the attack at Kaer Morhen, and when it is complete, it will include: non graphic child abuse, non graphic child death, non references to human experimentation in the trials, elements of mind control (purposefully deadening emotions), mentions of slavery and prostitution (‘cause Nilfgaard are like that). I know that sounds heavy, but I do hope you enjoy the story.
> 
> EDIT: name change. This story was originally called The Ridiculously Long (and eventually happy) life of Adair aep Riedbrune, however as the story grew from a oneshot during the Trial of the Grasses, into a full blown narrative it's become much more focused on the family and family connections of the witchers from the wolf school - hence the name change. Sorry for any confusion, peace and love x

_On the third day all the children died save one, a male barely ten. Hitherto agitated by a sudden madness, he fell at once into deep stupor. His eyes took on a glassy gaze, incessantly with his hands did he clutch at clothing, or brandish them in the air as if desirous of catching a quill. His breathing grew loud and hoarse; sweat cold, clammy and malodorous appeared on his skin. Then he was once more given elixir through the vein and the seizure it did return. This time a nose-bleed did ensue, coughing turned to vomiting, after which the male weakened entirely and became inert._  


_For two days more did symptoms not subside. The child's skin, hitherto drenched in sweat, grew dry and hot, the pulse ceased to be full and firm — albeit remaining of average strength, slow rather than fast. No more did he wake, nor did he scream._  


_Finally, came the seventh day. The male awoke and opened his eyes, and his eyes were those of a viper..._  


_pg. 77, Blood of Elves (UK edition)_

Finally, the desperate, all-consuming, clawing, twisting, burning agony began to recede. It still really fucking hurt though. He could hear himself now. The hoarse heaving sobs, that he knew hours ago had been desperate screaming, but had crackled into grinding moans as the pain ripped it’s way through his vocal chords. Pain lanced ceaselessly through his small body, wracking it in waves - it felt like someone particularly sadistic, had heated up a poker, dipped it in acid and then just stabbed him everywhere all at once. Melitele’s tits, it hurt. 

His hearing was returning to him but it was not a relief. In total sensory deprivation, there is only pain, there only will be pain, and there had probably only ever been pain. But now he had awareness of the other, the opposite, the concept of being painless. And that hurt. Not as much as his body, but then nothing did hurt as much as that, and likely nothing ever would. It also meant he could hear the awful, hushed conversation happening on the other side of the room, between his uncontrollable moaning of course. 

“Fuck. So they’re... they’re all dead? All of them?” The voice was harsh, spitting out the sounds of the words like they’d offended him, with an undercurrent of bitter helplessness running through them. He recognised the voice. It belonged to an older boy he’d seen around the keep, usually glaring, often cursing foully and frequently covered in blood - usually, although not always, someone else’s. He couldn’t remember the boy’s name, but he knew he had been warned to stay away from him. 

“Yes, just Gethen and Adair left.” If Adair could have cried, could have moved intentionally, he would have wept. So few. Something was wrong, he had been told the statistics as they’d been tying him to the table. Three in ten survived the grasses, it was a fact, meaning six or seven out of the original twenty one should have made it, not two. Adair tried to distract himself by trying to place the second voice that had just spoke, but he didn’t recognise it. It was low, serious and had the slight rasping quality of a boy whose voice had just broken. 

The first voice, the angry boy interrupted Adair’s painful contemplation.“Stop learning the kid’s names fuckwit.” He seemed genuinely angry. “You know they ain’t real people till they’ve passed. Don’t do that yourself. ” Adair was too agonised to be offended. It was logical he supposed, in an incredibly cold and unfeeling way. Why befriend someone with a seven in ten chance of dying?

Firmly, the serious voice responded to his friend, “they’re people and they’re important.” He said it with a finality that suggested he was taking no feedback on that statement, and that line of conversation was very much done. His companion sighed, heavily.

“Don’t be an ass you know what I mean.” He paused and sighed again, Adair didn’t kniw it was possible to make a sigh sound so angry, before muttering with real fury in his voice. “Ninteen fucking kids. All dead. And for what?” There was a sound that was clearly him spitting on the floor in disgust. Adair’s hoarse moaning picked up a notch and he missed the end of the angry one’s sentence. 

“You know what Lambert.” Lambert that was the angry one’s name. Adair’s thoughts were blurring into each other again. He noticed, he could faintly smell something. Something awful, lots of somethings awful. Heaving, he wanted to throw up, but he couldn’t. Fingers twitching, trying desperately to regain some motion, skittered at the table top. He could feel the damp he’d been tied to earlier, but it seemed like the leather restraints were now gone. Lambert’s serious friend was still speaking earnestly. “You know how important what we do is. Who we are.” The poor bugger seemed to really believe it. 

“You think it’s worth twenty corpses? ‘cause I sure fucking don’t.”

“Nineteen,” the serious voice corrected, like it made some kind of difference. 

“It’ll be twenty soon judging by the look of him,” Lambert said almost dispassionately, but not entirely hiding his fury at the situation, as another wracking wave of pain lit up Adair’s body and made him scream, really scream this time. Agony. It was agony. Adair lost time again. 

Adair blearily came back to himself to hear the serious voice, a lot closer now, say “He’ll be fine. Adair’s a fighter,” there was a wobble of something in the voice, concern maybe, but hope as well. Adair couldn’t believe this witcher apprentice seemed to know who he was. Most of the apprentices just blankly watched them with their yellow eyes, and shoved them out of the way if they were being too obnoxious. 

Serious Boy was still talking, almost rambling like he was trying to convince himself. “He’ll make it. Shoulda seen him beat the snot out of Lethe two weeks back. Adair’s half his size and beat him bloody.” Adair could admit to himself that it was an excellent fight. Lethe had attempted to wind him up with cracks about him being a slave, and in return Adair, second smallest of his year group, had knocked Lethe out cold. It might have been his best memory of Kaer Morhen. There was a really quiet sound, almost a padded thump, followed by another. Adair realised he could hear the two teenage boys moving closer. He’d never been able to do that before, hear the footsteps of the people who’d passed the trials. “You got this brother. You can beat this.” They were really close now. Listening intently Adair could hear them breathing.

Lambert was hissing bewilderedly at his friend, “What the fuck are you doing?” 

Calmly and patiently, the serious one responded, “you can’t tell me that you wouldn’t have given anything to have someone encourage you through your trials Lambert.” He was right Adair thought, sure technically they were as useless as a rusty knife on a kikimora, but knowing that someone was there, hoping he’d survive, cheering him on, made him feel like maybe he might actually last the night. 

“Geralt, brother.” Lambert’s tone was dripping in judgement. “I mean this from the very bottom of my heart. You’re really fucking weird.”

They might have continued that conversation if Adair had not, at that precise moment, regained use of some of his limbs, and with the last shuddering wave of pain, flung himself off the table, and vomited on their feet. 

His eyes were blurry, but he could make out two distinct blocks of colour reaching towards him. “It… it stopped hurting.” The shock at the sudden absence of agony was staggering. Then he noticed his voice. Saying his voice rasped was like saying the Pontar was a stream. He sounded like he’d been gargling with glass shards. Someone reached towards him, and he passed out into blissful pain-free unconsciousness.

When Adair woke up he was back on his table. Strapped down, this time. Idly, he wondered why he wasn’t panicking. He’d always hated being tied down, it reminded him of _before_. He tried to stop that train of thought instinctively, knowing it led only to pain and sadness - except weirdly, this time he didn’t seem to care. The heavy pressure he’d always felt on his chest, the burning eyes, the speeding breath, the adrenaline spikes that always appeared when he thought of his time training in Riedbrune, just didn’t come. Something was deeply wrong. It felt like something was missing.

He waited for the panic to spike through him at that thought, to spur him into action, to look for whatever was gone. It didn’t come. Intellectually, he knew he should be worried, but his body didn’t seem to know that, didn’t seem to get the message. It was like he was just blank. Suspicion curled through his mind like smoke. His body, in it’s newly disconnected way, didn’t respond, the twinging paranoia in his gut was missing, the tingling mistrust on his skin was gone. But he knew he was suspicious, and so despite the lack of emotion to back it up, that was something. 

Adair opened his swimming eyes, blinked away the white spots and simultaneously started flexing his extremities. Everything ached like he’d just done the trial of The Circle of Elements again. Like he’d just gone twenty rounds in the sparring ring. Twisting and flexing, he confirmed what he had suspected, he had full range of motion in his hands and feet, and so wriggling like a distressed worm, he managed to free his left hand from the lowest cross-body restraint, giving him use of his elbow. 

Five minutes, and a whole lot of fidgeting later, he’d freed his torso. Whilst doing this, he’d tried to provoke any kind of emotional response. Anything at all. He’d thought of things that enraged him, his old owner for one, his parents for another, but the hot anger across his throat was missing. Then he’d tried sadness. And that was much worse. He picked his worst memory, being dragged screaming away from his baby sister, by the Nilfgaardians his parents had sold him to in exchange for their continued freedom. A memory that he hadn’t even been able to think of for years because it was so awfully debilitating. The sobbing and choking was absent obviously, his breathing was, if anything, slower than normal - but his eyes they burned. They burned like his corneas were dipped in acid, but tears weren’t falling, his eyes just hurt. What the fuck had they done to him? 

He knew he should be angry, and he’d had enough experience with being furious, that he decided he would be angry anyway. As he freed his legs determinedly, he listened with his clearly enhanced hearing. Through the door he could hear people speaking quietly. He was going to find someone, he was going to interrogate them, and he was going to get some godsdamned answers. 

Shakily, he slid the cold stone floor, legs wobbling like a newborn deer. Steadying himself on the table, he carefully edged forwards, on the dark floor. The closer he got to the door the more he could hear, it was Geralt and Lambert from earlier. They were in trouble. Master Elgar was ripping them a new asshole. 

“So.” His voice was clearly enunciated, with a slight Temarian accent. “You think it’s acceptable behaviour, to break into the trial rooms, and harass one of our only survivors enough that he throws himself off a table, mid trial.” Master Elgar spoke mostly expressionlessly, but with an undercurrent of disdain and disaproval.

“Yeah one of the only survivors.” Lambert responded with plesantly with false humour, “and who’s fault might that be?” He paused just long enough to be quite rude. “Sir.” His reluctance at saying the honorific was clear. 

“Lambert shut up,” hissed Geralt. 

In a pompous and offended tone, Master Elgar started saying “I don’t quite know-” but Lambert cut him off.

“Interesting things I’ve been hearing _sir_.” The word sir was practically spat. His voice had a furious lilting quality that Adair had heard Lambert use right before he punched someone. “Contaminated batch of mutagens I heard. Alchemical ingredients, wasn’t it?” The tone was falsely questioning, but he clearly believed it. Great. So Adair had been not only injected with already horrifically dangerous mutagens, but also some kind of mystery contaminant that had killed off most of his year mates. He was getting closer to the door now. Just a few steps away. He waited for a pang of grief at the loss of so many, but it didn’t come. Just his stupid emotionless body, continuing to be blank. Fuck it. He didn’t have to feel things to remember them. He pictured Marx, Jonet, Liam, Elias and the others. Even Lethe, prick that he was. All dead because some asshole fucked up and contaminated the mutagens, that were already supposed to kill most of them. Senseless, pointless deaths because the bastards in charge didn’t give enough of a shit to keep them safe.

“You are insolent and rude Lambert of Aedirn. Tomorrow morn you will report to Master Varin for your punishment.” He could hear the master’s aggravation and embarrassment, accompanied by a swish of fabric. “You too Rivia, you should know better.”

“I am insolent and rude, but not wrong though, am I sir?” Lambert bit out, projecting his voice at the steadily fading footsteps of Master Elgar. 

Just as Adair reached the door, there was the clear sound of a hand connecting with someone’s head. Gripping the iron handle, he carefully tugged it, still feeling as weak as a newborn kitten, and opened the door to see Geralt and Lambert wrestling on the floor. Adair was altogether done with this situation. He was out of patience. He was exhausted. His body ached. He should be angry but wasn’t, and so he decided to be angry anyway.

“There’s something wrong with me.” His voice was hoarse and quiet and speaking hurt his ravaged throat. 

Lambert, dropped Geralt’s head onto the stone floor with a thunk, and Geralt unwound his arm from Lambert’s neck as they both scrambled up. 

“What the fuck are you doin’ up kid?” Lambert’s words, though harsh, were spoken gently, as he hurried over to Adair’s side. “What’s wrong?” They both looked concerned. Anything could have contaminated the mutagens, anything could be wrong with the kid. Lambert let Adair lean his weight on him, whilst Geralt checked him over. 

“I can’t… I can’t feel anything.” His head lolled on Lambert’s shoulder, “at all.” He looked at Geralt desperately, and saw he looked mildly confused, so he explained “I should be sad that everyone is dead but I don’t feel anything. I should be pissed off at Vesemir but I’m not, my body isn’t working right, I-”

“Kid that’s normal witcher stuff.” Lambert cut him off with a relieved breath. “You know that, Witcher 101. You get better at killing, worse at feeling.”

“What the-?” Adair stopped before deciding to shout, “I didn’t fucking know that!” It felt good to shout. Even if he wasn’t compelled to shout he decided he was going to do it frequently. Quieter, more measuredly, he bitterly admitted, “I didn’t even know that some of us weren’t going to survive the plowing trial till the whoreson tying me down fucking mentioned it.”

“They must have said something,” Geralt stated in muted tones. 

“Yeah kid,” Lambert lowered Adair to the floor and plopped himself down next to him. “They tell you before you get to Kaer Morhen.” Adair frowned at him.

“Maybe they don’t bother telling slaves?” he questioned. They both looked mildly surprised, which for witchers, was akin to being gobsmacked. 

“What?” Geralt spoke earnestly, with concern “you’re..hm. You’re not a slave Adair.” He peered at Adair, eye’s worried. “You’re a witcher’s apprentice now, you know that.”

“No, no I am.” Adair tried to reassure the older boy who was looking concerned. Geralt largely didn’t have visible expressions, Adair had seen him around and assumed he was shy or naturally reserved, but now he was thinking of the rumours of extra trials, additional experiments, and thought he would probably pity Geralt if he could. Adair explained further. “Vesemir bought my contract when I was, I don’t know, eight or nine? Vesemir owns me, until I graduate properly. Legally.”

Lambert exploded.“What, and I cannot express this enough, the fuck?” He was pissed. “Since when did witchers have slaves Rivia?”

Softly, Geralt said, “never. As far as I know.” His brow was furrowed, mouth slightly downturned. His expression looked almost non existent compared to Lambert, whose face was twisted in outrage and fury on Adair’s behalf. 

“I thought you knew?” Adair said, surprised, and addressed Geralt. “I know I heard you talking about the fight with Lethe.” Geralt stared back, uncomprehendingly. “When he was making cracks about how I was never gonna pass the trials anyway so I might as well go back to Riedbrune and be a whore.”

Lambert was still cursing the elder witchers.“Fucking Vesemir? You can’t be serious Adair? This is a misunderstanding. It ain’t true.” He spoke almost to reassure himself.

“Riedbrune.” Geralt spoke, speaking over his friend. “That’s the slave capital of Nilfgaard, isn’t it?”

“It is true Lambert,” Adair said, rolling his eyes. “And yes Geralt. My parents sold me to the Nilfgaardian army, ‘cause they couldn’t afford the initial fine. I started out in a labour camp, but I was five or six, and tiny - we didn’t always have enough to eat - so I got passed on to the Aine house, that’s the-”

“That’s the pleasure slaves.” Geralt said tonelessly.

Lambert was horrified.“Fucking hell Adair.” 

“Yeah exactly, so I trained there for…” he took a sharp breath in while thinking, “God’s I don't know? A year and a half maybe? But I was years away from being actually profitable, so my owner decided to take me to the market to try and make some quick money, pay off some gambling debts or something.” Lambert, wide-eyed, mouthed the word profitable at Geralt, who pursed his lips. Adair didn’t notice and continued. “So I’m drugged to the gills, holding up some heavy sign in the burning heat, and then the biggest man I’d ever seen, wanders up, buys me, I wake up at Kaer Morhen, and I’m told I’m going to kill monsters.”

“Fuck!” Lambert said emphatically, as he sat back and leant against the wall. 

“Yup.” There was a pause while the two older boys readjusted their worldviews, and while Adair adjusted to the fact he’d told the story of his emotionally charged, awful childhood, without a flicker of emotion, without even a tear. It felt distant, like a sad story that had happened to someone else, not the strung together worst moments of his life. It was dizzying to think about, that this was normal for witchers, an expected sacrifice. 

Adair remembered something he’d meant to ask earlier. “Oh I meant to ask, how’s Gethen doing? He’s the other survivor right?” Geralt’s mouth turned down even further, and Lambert who’d been fiddling with a leaf he’d found on the floor, ripped it in half, chucked it away and closed his eyes.

“Not any fucking more. Heartless bastards.” It was clear Lambert was not going to expand on this any further. Adair looked at Geralt expectantly. 

Geralt fidgeted and looked at the ground, almost as though he was hoping it would make his next words somehow not awful. “They um, they took him in for additional experiments.” He winced. Glancing at Adair, it was clear he didn’t want to talk about it anymore than he had to. “They wanted to know why you’d both survived... and if it would make you stronger.” Geralt unconsciously played with a strand of his bone white hair. “Gethen didn’t make it.”

The words didn’t make sense. They couldn’t make sense “Wait. What?” Adair didn’t understand. They’d lost nineteen boys because of their carelessness, so what? They’d just decided to sacrifice Gethen? “So. It’s… it’s just me. For my year?” Horrifyingly, he felt his eyes viciously burn again with unshed tears. Why had they picked Gethen and not him? What was the point? They only had two witchers for this year, surely it would make sense to keep them as safe as possible. “I’m the only survivor?” he said disbelievingly. 

He voiced his disbelief to the pair of older boys before him. Geralt looked like his brain hurt, and he frowned. Lambert looked pitying, he pushed himself up from the wall, and faced Adair dead on. As gently as the brash rough older boy could, he said “They don’t give a shit kid, not about any of us.” He said it like this was a known fact of life, one he had accepted, and not like it was a horrifying thing to say about the men who raised them. “We’re all gonna die, probably young.” Geralt tried to smile in a comforting manner, but he looked pained, and gave up. “Of us apprentices, half don’t make the first year out alone.” Lambert continued, “we only have seven elders Adair. That’s seven witchers out of thousands who made it to over two hundred.” He paused, considering whether or not to say what he was thinking to the twelve year old in front him. Lambert didn’t want to upset the kid, to cause him anymore worry, or pain - but it was important he knew how it worked. How being a witcher, and a witcher’s apprentice worked. “They don’t care about us, because to them we’re as good as dead already.”

Adair gazed hollowly at Lambert, as they sat on the cold stone floor of the main infirmary in Kaer Morhen. Geralt silently watched, quiet and calm, likely because his ability to be anything else was torn from him without his consent, three years previous. Lambert, who rarely felt anything other than irritation or anger, felt frustrated and sad. It was novel, he supposed, but still dull and distant. Adair felt nothing. Instead he thought. Thought about what he was going to do, what he was going to say to Vesemir when he next saw him, thought about his friends, the boys who’d died the last two nights passed, thought about the injustice of children dying every year in their in their tens, or even hundreds across the witcher schools, just to make nine or ten very efficient killers - half of whom wouldn’t even survive a full year out on their own. It was nauseating. It was monstrously wrong, but perhaps even more horrifically, it was disgustingly hypocritical of a bunch of self proclaimed monster slayers. And whether they liked it or not, Adair was going to tell the elders exactly that.


	2. The Disappointment of the Youth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adair confronts Vesemir about the negligence of the elder witchers, and the mistreatment of the children in Kaer Morhen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter discusses the canonical slavery within the witcher series, and references the many deaths as a result of the witcher trials, and the human experimentation the witchers used to develop the average witchers, and then also the additional experimentation Geralt was subject to.

Vesemir was worried. Scratch that, he was downright concerned, an unfamiliar sensation in this last century. At nearly a millennia, he should bloody well know better than to get attached to one of the boys, before they'd undergone the trials - and yet he had. Bitterly, he reflected that wisdom did not always come with age, because attached he had become.

He couldn't help it. Anytime he thought of Adair, he couldn't help but remember the first time he'd laid eyes on the boy. He’d been so small, so quiet. Emptily blinking at him, without an ounce of wariness he’d expect to see from children at a slave market. He didn’t even seemed bothered by Vesemir’s cat-eyes that marked him out as a witcher. The boy had a haunted look that Vesemir still saw in his nightmares occasionally. Thinking back, he recalled the day, just a few short years previously, practically a blink of an eye to a witcher of his age. 

He’d found the little boy in a market south of Riedbrune. His eyes were glassy, and the sign hanging from his neck was obscene. It took a lot, but he didn't punch the seller. Vesemir always tried not to hurt humans where possible, but he was a monster slayer after all, and so seriously considered it. Taking the boy meant that his year's intake for the trials would be a little larger than usual, but that only meant more witchers in the end. He’d held the small hand in his as they left Riedbrune, and started to tell the boy stories about heroes and monsters, and fights and battles, as they made their way back to Kaer Morhen.

Thinking of that day often eclipsed the present. Despite the steady diet of meat and the specialised herbs for growing witchers, he couldn't help but see the small starved body from the slavers market, even though the boy had been growing like a weed. The child had flourished at Kaer Morhen. He was quick to smile, quicker to laugh despite his deeply concerning upbringing. Mostly he was kind, or at least as kind as twelve year old boys can be, quick with blade and clever. Vesemir was proud of him. And it was almost like the Gods were punishing Vesemir for his foolishness. For his arrogance. Of course Adair’s year group would get the contaminated batch of mutagens. Of course he'd be one of those poor boys. They'd lost twelve children in the first three hours, quickly alerting the alchemists to the problem. Nearly two days in, and there were only two boys left. One was Adair. He just had to hang on. One more hour. Vesemir hadn’t prayed in decades, centuries probably, he didn’t hold with divine intervention, preferring to trust the edge of his blade than the capriciousness of incomprehensibly powerful beings. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe the gods existed, no, he’d seen far too many inexplicable, terrible, terrifying things to doubt the existence of gods, he did however doubt whether or not they gave a shit about anything that happened to anyone living. Despite it all, he got on his knees and began to pray.

***

Lambert and Geralt had helped him back to infirmary, and sat him down on one of the padded chairs. The physician and resident healer - an Elder whose name Adair hadn’t bothered to learn although he thought it began with an O - had poked and prodded at Adair until he was a hair’s-width-away from snapping at him that he probably wasn’t going to explode, and he didn’t care if he did because at least he’d be allowed some bloody sleep. He’d managed to restrain himself. Despite his body’s apparently persisting disconnect from his mind, he was aware enough to identify his growing irritation and exhaustion, and every second in the healer’s clutches he was getting closer and closer to doing something about them. Something like throwing the damned thermometer at the man’s head. 

The healer’s cat-yellow eyes flickered towards the door, before returning back to his notes, almost like he was expecting something. Adair listened closely. Straining his ears to their maximum, he realised he could hear steps getting steadily closer, echoing a clacking rhythm on the flat stone floor. They were at least several corridors away, but whoever they were, the healer and physician was clearly being relieved of duty, and so as far as Adair was concerned they were welcome to come. 

Or at least he thought that, until Vesemir’s grizzled, ancient old face peered round the door. He spoke quietly to the physician, lingering in the doorway, but Adair could hear it like they were standing next to him. “He’s okay Oz? He’s… healthy?” Hearing Vesemir’s concern, brought up a whole host of confusing emotional responses. Adair tried to sort them out in his head, but they were slipping through his fingers like water. Vesemir seemed to genuinely care, his worry unfeigned and sincere, and that’s what made the whole situation feel all the more like a betrayal. The thought of The Trials, at the pointlessness of what happened to Gethen, and Holy mother Melitele at the thought of Geralt - struggling to express even basic emotions, because he was good at witchering, and as a reward they had subjected the boy to even more experiments, even more torture than the rest of them. 

After reassuring Vesemir, the physician wandered off, and Vesemir came in to the room properly rather than just standing in the doorway. He came bearing food. Taking a deep breath, and apparently steeling himself for something, he sat next to Adair, surveying him with his cat-like eyes, more amber than yellow. Adair guessed they probably matched his own now. Handing some of the meat to Adair, Vesemir said “You survived boy. I'm... I'm glad." The words were said awkwardly, but with real feeling.

Distracting himself with eating, and delaying the need to respond, Adair looked at Vesemir, regarding the old witcher for a long time. He’d never had a parent, not really, not one who actually cared. Since coming to Later Morhen, Vesemir in his gruff taciturn manner had filled that role somewhat. Checking up on the boy, correcting his mistakes in basic swordplay despite being a master at it, giving him rare pieces of mostly helpful advice. And it made this all the worse. "Are you really glad, Vesemir?" Adair asked quietly. "Because I'm not." Vesemir's brow furrowed deeply, puzzled, although he said nothing. "Vesemir," Adair said slowly, clearly. "How could I ever be glad that my life came at the cost of twenty others? It’s horrifying." Vesemir closed his eyes, his face drooping in sad comprehension. Adair's voice dropped to a mere whisper, "and I must live with it."

"It is hard," Vesemir acknowledged, "but they knew the risks." He paused, thinking for a while, getting his thoughts more ordered before adding, "and they chose this anyway, despite the risks, for the honour of The Path. In order to save people Adair." He hesitated again. Then gently he gripped Adair's shoulder and said, "it's the best risk a person can make." 

"Are you sure?" Adair's voice was hard. "Are you sure they knew the risks, Vesemir?"

"Of course." His expression didn’t change, it rarely did, but he sounded baffled, "we don't lie Adair, we tell all the boys the risks before they get to Kaer Morhen, before they accept the path, remember."

Adair knew he would be furious, so he made himself shout, "no I don't remember, Vesemir! I don't remember whatever I agreed to, whilst doped to the gills on slaver compliancy elixir!" Concentrating on his memory of what it physically felt like to feel angry, he straightened himself up, tensed his slim body, tightened his fists and drew his mouth up in a snarl. His body may not reactively show anger anymore, but he remembered what it looked like and would bloody well take on the job himself. "I didn't even know some of us wouldn't survive until I was being _tied to that fucking table._ " The last words were practically spat in Vesemir's face, who - since the phrase compliancy elixir had been uttered - had thrown himself to his feet, looking utterly stricken. 

"Fuck Adair," he breathed, horrified " _Fuck!_ You- You... didn't know?" Vesemir had one hand on his face, the other supporting his weight on the walls, for once looking like he might actually be multiple centuries old. “Gods,” he breathed. He reached out to grab Adair's shoulder again, but Adair stepped back, smoothly, just out of reach, Vesemir gave him a wounded look.

"Don’t look at me like that! What do you expect, Vesemir?” He gazed at the older man sitting next to him, infusing his voice with the sound of hurt. “You- you brought me here, knowing I would probably die. Two ploughing days ago I found out that you didn’t rescue me from that slave market, you brought me here knowing that there was a seven in ten chance I would die in agony.” Sharply, he inhaled, pausing to take a few more bits of the dried meat, gnawing viciously. “And you know that even if I survived the trials, I would probably die in the next ten years anyway. How am I supposed to feel about that? How am I supposed to feel, generally? I can’t feel anything - you took that too.” 

Vesemir looked overwhelmed. “Adair, I wasn’t thinking about the statistics,” he was imploring with the boy, hoping he’d see reason, “I just wanted you away from that monster, and the buyers in the market. It seemed safer, I-”

“Safer?” Adair bit out. “Safer? The average pleasure slave lives past thirty, what’s the normal witcher life expectancy?” Despite it being clearly rhetorical, Vesemir tried to answer, and Adair tried to block out the fact that the answer ended in ‘teen’. “And obviously that’s ignoring the current situation, where, because of the elders' carelessness, and disregard for our lives, my entire year group is dead!” Vesemir looked mildly regretful, but not horrified like Adair knew he should be, and that made him decide to be angrier with Vesemir directly. He knew the other elders were asses, but he’d liked Vesemir, he’d trusted him. “How many children have you personally led to their deaths here, Vesemir, like so very nearly happened to me? How many deaths are on your hands?"

Vesemir could keep quiet in the face of this rant no longer "Adair!” he scolded. “We are witchers,” He said it the same way people say the sun rises, avoid drowners, don’t trust bards with money, etc. the way people say fundamental truths of the universe. “We save people. And yes it is at great risk to ourselves but-"

"But you aren't saviours though, _are you?_ ” Adair cut him off viciously. “How many thousands of children do you think have died in these walls?” he demanded. “I wonder if the Witcher death toll is higher than the number of people saved?"

"Of course it's not.” Vesemir said severely, frustration dripping from his every word. “A single witcher may save thousands in his lifetime. It does not erase-"

"Thousands saved, but at the cost of fifty children, desperate to be heroes because they've been raised on a diet of heroism. It’s not a choice Vesemir, not when it’s the only option they’ve been given." 

For the first time since Adair had met the elder witcher, he looked truly angry. His mouth was slightly down-turned, and brow more furrowed than usual. "It is the price we pay, we must pay, to save people from monsters,” the gravitas of his words made it clear, though he did not like it, he agreed with the actions of the elders. “It is a price all warriors must accept," he finished.

"But we are not _warriors_ , Vesemir, we are _children!_ " He hoped the elder would see reason, although he knew in his heart he would not.

"You are both, Adair,” he said tiredly, running his hands through his long grey hair. “Witchers must be both."

Adair stood up. He walked across the room, desperate to put some distance between himself and Vesemir. Gods it hurt. He wondered if this level of apathy, of disregard for human life was a result of the hundreds of years Vesemir had lived distanced from his emotions. He wondered if this would be him in a few hundred years, provided he lived long enough. On the other side of the room was a mirror. Looking at his alien reflection, so different from what he had previously seen, he examined his new witcher face. The paleness of his skin, the sharp new somewhat longer length of his teeth, the haunting amber cat-eyes of course, the new muscles, ever so slightly more defined than two days ago. He still had his thick wavy brown hair, inherited from his mother, it was the only thing that had remained unchanged. It was the face of a stranger. 

"You should have left me in the pleasure house,” he said quietly, meeting Vesemir’s eyes in the reflection. “Rather than buy my contract in an attempt to assuage your guilt, to reassure yourself that you are a good person despite the rivers of blood this order is drowning in.” Vesemir could not hold eye contact any longer. He could see the anger, hear the disappointment, in the boy he had brought to Kaer Morhen. He wanted to shake Adair, to make him understand how important this was. Vesemir believed in the righteousness of The Path, he believed their actions were for the good of the continent, that witchers were heroes like in the stories he’d told Adair on his way up the mountain. But he could not bear to see the disappointment painted over the young boy’s face. Adair continued his furious tirade. “The Witcher elders are guilty of the deaths of thousands of children, Vesemir. At least in the pleasure houses I would have known who the monsters were, rather than here, where I thought for the first time in my fucking life that I'd found a family, only to realise they're the ones leading us to the fucking noose.”

Adair put his head in his hands despairingly, before looking up at the elder witcher, eyes burning. “I cannot forget this Vesemir, it is unforgivable. It is unspeakable. In your quest to become monster slayers, you have become monsters, and it has fuck all to do with your mutations." At this final, furious sentence Adair left the room. 

Vesemir stayed behind in the infirmary, staring vacantly at the space Adair had so recently evacuated, wrestling with an unfamiliar emotion. Master Osbert, the elder physician and healer of Kaer Morhen, had heard everything. He came into the room, sat down next to his old sword master, and patted him on the knee. “Children rarely see the bigger picture Vesemir,” he said to his old friend and mentor, “and of course this boy wouldn’t, he’s barely lived outside of Kaer Morhen, he doesn’t understand the danger of the world - not truely.” Vesemir nodded. He knew this, of course - but it never felt good to disappoint someone who had believed you to be something you were not. He was a warrior, a monster hunter - perhaps this emotional response he was currently experiencing was a sign that he had been too long from The Path, maybe after the current intake were trained, he would take a few small contracts to remind himself how much a witcher’s work mattered, how many they saved. Maybe then he might be able to block out the betrayed expression on young Adair’s face. 

Adair flew up the stairs, gliding as silently and quickly as his new mutations allowed. He would not sleep now despite his fatigue. Instead he climbed steadily all the way to the top walls of the inner keep, into one of the open-air turrets. Looking at the twinkling stars stitched into the inky black shroud of the night sky, lying on his back, he quietly listed the names, hometowns, and associated memories of every single one of his former classmates. He recalled Jonet of Kaedwin and the time they’d played tag for three hours, the long conversation with Elias aep Etolia, fellow Nilfgaardian slave acquisition, discussing how they felt about their parents, and their old masters. Even Lethe with his vulgar hopeful comments about the women he hoped to meet in his future. All these lives and thoughts and hopes and dreams, gone. He made himself feel every ounce of loss, every syllable of heartache at the staggering death count - it would be okay, and he would never allow himself to become numb to it, not like Vesemir.

Adair kept his whispered vigil, through the night and into the first light of morning, the only person in Kaer Morhen who thought to memorialise the boys that had died in the past two nights. The only person who had remembered to grieve.


	3. There Be Dragons (Wyverns to be Precise)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adair continues his journey, training to become a witcher. He gets to know some of the older students a little more when they go hunting and encounter a wyvern.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is some rough-housing between children, a scene of violence wherein children are present and one child suffers a serious injury.

When you live in a keep filled with people who have extraordinary senses, hearing being one of them, arguments to not often stay private for long. The result being, that almost every elder had overheard Adair’s confrontation with Vesemir, and every witchers apprentice had heard whispers of something. Quickly, in the way gossip and arguments were want to do, it became the stuff of legend at the keep of Kaer Morhen. 

Perhaps due to some residual irritation, anger or offence at Adair’s criticism of their way of life, or possibly just due to the simple convenience, Adair was put in the year group above him, straight into their training class - and without any additional instruction, was expected to keep up. The past few months were long, and even after the classes were finished and the apprentices were given small measures of free time to entertain themselves, Adair was drilling forms and sword practises that the other eight boys in his class had perfected over a year ago. He’d been at it for months, slowly getting better, slowly improving, and even more slowly, he was catching up. 

Three months in, fifteen minutes after the most recent monumental failure of a sparring match, in which Adair had lost in under a minute, Geralt had cornered him in the training field. The older boy’s face was impassive, which wasn’t unusual, but he was staring at him intently, jaw clenching and unclenching, almost as if he was struggling to know what to do next. Adair offered him a wave, and said, “Hey Geralt, you alright?” to which the boy grunted him and carried on with his staring. Adair shrugged internally and went back to the kata he was drilling. 

Seconds later, Adair was jumping in surprise, almost dropping his sword because Geralt was suddenly _right behind him_ and saying, “You’re fast but your grip is shit,” in that quiet toneless way he had of speaking. 

Adair blinked at the older boy, confused. He didn’t know what he was supposed to say. Possibly, to someone who was as good at swordplay as Geralt, incorrect grips could be offensive maybe? “Um...sorry?” he offered. Geralt frowned. 

There was a warm ringing laugh on the left side of the field. Walking over, was Eskel, a smiling, attractive boy with long brown hair, an easy smile and twinkling eyes. “What Geralt is trying and failing to say,” he said with an eye roll and a friendly nudge to Geralt who pursed his lips at him, “is that you’re holding your sword wrong, and he knows how to do it better, and he’s going to show you.” He clapped Geralt on the shoulder, dodged the friendly punch Geralt sent back at him, winked at Adair, and flopped down on the grass, a few paces away from them, basking in the afternoon sunshine. 

Geralt padded over to where Adair was letting his sword dangle from his fingers. “Hold it normally,” Geralt instructed, and Adair took a two handed grip. Geralt, looking at Adair’s hands rather than having to meet his eyes, said “Wider grip. More Stable,” and he demonstrated, moving Adair’s hands gently, in slow motion. He also tapped Adair’s upper wrist. “Don’t bend it like that,” he mumbled, “you’ll get injured when you parry.” Geralt made about six more minute changes to Adair’s grip, each one making the swinging motion of the sword feel more and more like an extended limb than a weapon. Then Geralt offered to spar. 

Obviously Geralt was going to win, he was top of the class and Adair was the bottom, Geralt had fifteen months and thirty pounds of muscle on Adair, not to mention the twelve extra months of training. But it wasn’t about winning or losing, it was about the practise. It was also a little bit about hearing Eskel heckle Geralt despite not having a hope of beating him in an actual sword fight. 

It was hysterically funny to hear Eskel saying “call that footwork Rivia? Hop to it,” as Adair flailed and completely missed Geralt by a mile. Or, “shoddy parry there Geralt,” as Adair tripped over his own feet. And Adair’s favourite, “Oof” after Adair dropped his sword, and Geralt handed it back to him, “not so much the white wolf as a grey puppy!” Adair lost it. Cackling, he dropped to the floor hiccupping with laughter, as Geralt threw his sword down, grabbed Eskel by the neck, spun him around and pinned him to the floor. 

“You are not funny Eskel.” Geralt said pinning him easily, not even breathing heavily. Despite the words, his eyes were bright, and Adair was sure that if he knew how, he’d be smiling. 

“Horrific lies and shameful slander!” Eskel said, as primly as he could with a mouth full of grass. “I’m hilarious, brother - it’s not my fault you can’t appreciate genius wit like myself and Adair clearly can.” Adair was still giggling. 

After three more minutes of ‘wrestling’, or rather Geralt pinning Eskel in a variety of creative ways, and Eskel offering the least sincere apology Adair had ever heard, the older boys got up, brushed themselves off, and made to start ambling towards the food hall, via the armoury. Adair stopped them by grabbing on to Geralt’s arm. “Thank you. Geralt,” he said gratefully. Geralt gave a short jerky nod, and grunted. 

Rolling his eyes, Eskel turned back to Adair. “What Geralt means is you’re welcome, and he’s glad he could help.” He eyed the younger boy with a slight smile, “wanna come get dinner?”

That afternoon began something of a tradition. After sword practise, Adair had always stayed behind, trying to improve through sheer effort and will. But now he had company once or twice a week. Always Geralt, often Eskel, sometimes Lambert and occasionally Voltehre, who was one of Lambert’s friends, and had the quickest footwork Adair had ever seen. All of them had seen him struggling, and all of them - in their own way - were trying to help. Some more than gently than others, but Adair appreciated them immensely. 

He was trying to remember that thought now as Lambert yelled at him. “For fucks sake! Swing like you fucking mean it Adair!” Lashing out his sword, he spun past Lambert, swiping low, but Lambert blocked and kicked him. Stumbling back, Adair adjusted and leapt forwards, hitting out with vicious speed. “You’re fast so be fucking faster! Stab me asshole” Adair spun, parried, dodged. Hitting again and again, parrying, sweeping, striking, and then finally he hit Lambert hard enough to knock his sword out his hand and flicked the training blade to the older boy’s neck. “And that’s more fucking like it kid!” Lambert crowed, knocking Adair’s sword arm out the way, ruffling his hair, before decking him and sprinting off. Panting, whilst lying on his back, Adair grinned. It had only taken seven-and-a-half months, but he’d managed to disarm one of the older boys. 

Adair was fast, faster than everyone else, even Geralt. Once he’d overheard the elders discussing it - his unnatural speed. He certainly hadn’t had it before the contaminated mutagens. They were lamenting that they’d probably never be able to replicate it, unknowing as they were what had been administered to the boys of his year. When Adair really got going in a fight, it was almost impossible to keep up with him, and that was before he’d even taken any additional witcher potions. The elders knew that if he survived the training and the final trials, despite his unfavourable attitude towards them, he was going to be one hell of a witcher. 

***

As the class got older, they were given more freedom, and more responsibility. Participating in the hunts, the gathering of meat for the castle, was nothing new, but they were fifteen now - well Adair wasn’t, he was fourteen - but they’d been given permission to go out unsupervised. They’d been split into two groups, and told to gather as much meat as they could - naturally, it immediately became a competition. 

“When we come back laden with meat boys, we’ll give you a fucking mouthful” Lambert swaggered up to Eskel, getting in his face. Adon, who was on Lambert’s team, rolled his eyes at Adair who tried valiantly not to laugh. Lambert hated being laughed at. 

“Lambert.” Eskel shook his head mournfully, before giving the boy a smirk. “Even if you were good enough with a crossbow to kill a deer, I doubt you could carry it.” He ended it with a flex of his muscles. Despite the boys all getting fed the same food, Eskel was huge. He towered above the others, built like a tree - he looked like he could lift Lambert with one arm. He’d done that to Adair once, who despite his best attempts had only managed to get taller, not wider. 

Lambert snarked back, “at least I _might_ fucking hit something you useless bastard,” he shoved at Eskel, which was rather like shoving a brick wall and had much the same effect. 

Eskel gestured at his group. He had Geralt, Adair, Gardis and Piotr. “We’ll have double what you’ve got.” 

“I call bullshit on that one.” Then, Lambert darted off to the left, laughing - taking his team with him, Adon and Voltehre trailing behind. Adair gave them a commiserating smile, which made them laugh. 

“Right team.” Eskel looked at his group seriously, “We have to win or Lambert is going to be more of an ass than usual. Geralt thinks he knows where the deer herds are.” Geralt nodded, gracefully pulled himself up off the tree he’d been leaning on, and indicated with his head that they should follow him. Adair was crap at tracking. He could always identify that there _were_ footprints and scents - just not specifically what left them. Piotr and Geralt were the best so they led, the others trailing behind them cheerfully. 

Thirty minutes walking in the hot sun were enough to lift anyone’s spirits. The forests surrounding Kaer Morhen were gorgeous, the light filtering through the green leaves like some sort of painting. Eskel and Gardis were playing ‘keep up’ with a rock they’d found, and were batting it as they walked. Gardis had just batted it up with his knee when Geralt stopped. He grabbed Piotr and pointed at something. “Fuck.” They all heard it. Geralt barely spoke most of the time, never wasted a syllable. Whatever was happening, was bad enough for him to swear. 

Piotr hissed to Geralt, “that can’t be, it must be a mistake, two prints combined or something?” The concern in his voice was audible. 

“What is it?” Eskel demanded. 

Geralt pointed to a footprint, a very large, obviously clawed footprint that was next to a long thick line that had been impressed into the dirt. “That’s a wyvern track.” It was fresh. Geralt unsheathed his silver sword, and Eskel mirrored him, looking around intently. Piotr looked like he was in shock, whilst Gardis grimly got out his crossbow and silver tipped bolts. The tracks were very, very fresh.

They had reached the clearing. This was where the deer supposedly were, and Adair allowed Geralt was kind of right. A herd of deer had been here, and, judging by the overwhelming stench of freshly spilled blood, they hadn’t left. Carcasses were littered across the field, ripped open and leaking. Geralt and Eskel, taking the lead with their swords drawn were scanning the scene, eyes flickering. There was a blur of movement forty feet away. It was colossal - a royal wyvern. 

Cutting through the air like a crossbow bolt, the wyvern launched. Howling with fury, it halved the distance between them before jerking backwards and hitting the ground. Gardis had hit it. Whilst he was reloading, Geralt darted forwards and left, slamming his silver sword down and letting his momentum carry him towards the tail. Eskel struck at the throat before lunging right, just missing a snap of the long curved fangs. Two more crossbow bolts struck the wyvern from Piotr and Gardis. Eskel and Geralt hit the beast simultaneously again, inflicting as much damage as possible, Geralt actually managing to lop off part of the tail. It roared. 

Adair entered the fray. Fangs dripping, it lunged at Adair like a snake. Adair darted left then, left again, then right - using his abnormal speed to stay just out of reach. Each time he passed, swiping at the face with his sword. Two hits and a miss. Adair was close enough to be splattered with wyvern blood. Two more crossbow bolt hits. They were winning, another hit from Adair had it screaming with rage, when it happened. Rearing up on hind legs, the wyvern lunged at Piotr, just past Adair. Adair got his sword in the wyvern’s stomach, ripping through its innards, but it caught Piotr’s arm in it’s maw. Eskel was hacking at its side when Geralt took a running jump and landed on the creature’s back. Without hesitation, he plunged his sword into the vulnerable join between the back and the head, and twisted. It stopped writhing, twitched a little and then slumped. Slumped straight onto Piotr. 

Adair was panting. All except Gardis were splattered in blood and ichor and other unknown fluids. Idly, Adair noted that humans would likely be panicking right now. But they were not humans, they were witchers, and this was the main reason why their emotions had been separated from them in the first place. “Piotr can you hear me?” Adair called out. There was no response. That was concerning. “We need to get it off him, now.” Eskel jogged round to the front, trying to grip the slippery corpse, bracing himself underneath the shoulders, Geralt grabbed the beast’s belly, Gardis and Adair taking a leg each. Between them, they heaved it up, and tipped it to the side. Piotr was breathing, but barely. 

He was covered in blood and viscera. His shoulder was torn open from the bite, and it was hard to tell what blood was his, and what was the wyvern’s. Grabbing his water skien, Eskel sloughed off as much of the fluids as he could, revealing a darkly jagged, sluggishly weeping wound. Quickly, sloppily, winding it with rapidly staining rags, Adair and Eskel bound the shoulder and Eskel easily scooped him up in a bridal carry. Turning to Geralt, he breathlessly hollered, “I’ll run back with him. We still have to get meat, you’re in charge,” before sprinting in the rough direction of Kaer Morhen. 

Geralt watched them go, shrugged and then nodded at the ten or so recently killed deer. Adair stared at him, incredulously. “Can’t waste it,” Geralt muttered defensively. They picked themselves up, wiped their swords down, each selecting a deer carcass with minimal butchering, Geralt actually grabbing two small bucks. Slowly, they wound their way back to Kaer Morhen. 

When the blood splattered boys finally made it back to the keep, they ran into Lambert who was holding a giant stag slumped over his shoulder. His smug grin slipped off his face like water, as he caught sight of their battered bodies, blood splatter, grim expressions and the conspicuously missing two members of their group. 

“What the fuck happened?” His eyes were as wide as The Pontar, taking them in. They looked an utter state. 

Geralt grunted “royal wyvern,” like that explained everything.

Lambert blinked at him in shock. “You’re fucking joking. _Here_?” The last word was said almost breathlessly in disbelief. “There was one here? At Kaer Morhen?” Adair could understand his shock. Witchers were trained round here, other than the odd drowner, nothing really survived for long. Then Lambert remembered the absences. “Where the _fuck_ is Eskel? Piotr?” From his tone Adair could tell he was bracing himself for the worst. He couldn’t keep quiet. 

“They’re alive Lambert,” he reassured him quickly, “but Piotr got a chunk taken out of his shoulder. He’s… It didn’t-” He didn’t know what to say, how to explain the huge wound on the other boy’s shoulder, his sword arm. How to explain their uncertainty in the situation. It was the worst injury Adair had ever seen. His voice trailed off, unable to put words to the maelstrom of things he was thinking, feelings he couldn’t put into words, dulled worry for his friend. 

Geralt took over, unwilling to let Lambert remain uninformed. “He was alive when we saw him. Eskel ran ahead. Got him to the infirmary.” Three whole sentences at once. It might have been the most Adair had ever heard Geralt say in such a short period of time. 

Lamber clearly breathed a sigh of relief. He’d always been the most emotive, after Adair of course, although usually that emotion was anger or laughter at someone else’s expense. His eyes roved over the blood splattered three before him. “Rest of you boys alright?” They nodded. “Fuck. Okay, good.” He paused, suddenly thinking of something, “It is dead, right?” he enquired, looking troubled. Geralt grunted affirmatively, clearly having used his quota of words up for a while. 

“What’s going on?” The other boys in Lambert’s group arrived. 

“They ran into a royal fucking wyvern and Piotr’s in a bad way,” Lambert answered for them, quickly. “Fuck. Lets get this shit to the kitchen and we can check on the poor bastard in a minute.” They lifted their hauls over their shoulders and stomped to the kitchen, leaving the deer in the carcass pile for preparation. Finally, they went down to the infirmary. Eskel, and Master Osbert were quietly speaking outside. 

Unable to contain himself Adair burst out with “How is Piotr?” 

Osbert eyed him, irritated to be interrupted. “He’ll live. But that’s not important right now-”

“-that’s not important?” Adair cut him off outraged. He gestured to Eskel, who was still splattered in Piotr’s blood, and opened his mouth to begin a tirade. 

Osbert ignored him, and surveying the boys, he said calmly, “what we need to discuss is the failure that happened this afternoon.”

Adair scrunched up his forehead, to show his confusion. “Failure?” he didn’t understand? “Why is it a failure? We all lived." 

“And, we killed a royal wyvern,” Geralt added softly.

“It took five of you,” Osbert said furiously, almost sounding offended at the thought, “and Piotr was seriously injured.” He threw his hands up in exasperation. “When you graduate, in one years time, you will be alone, unaccompanied. An injury can kill you when you’re alone, to allow someone to become injured suggests foolishness on all your parts, so yes - it was a failure.” 

Adair was incensed. “How many students, honestly how many graduated witchers have successfully fought a royal wyvern alone?” he demanded. “We survived,” which to him really was the main point, the thing to celebrate, before adding, “and that’s without full training, that _is_ something to celebrate.” 

Osbert did not like to be corrected, and in any case he didn’t believe Adair was correct. “Wilful child,” he snarled at Adair, done with the conversation. 

Adair opened his mouth to say something else, but Lambert, in a stunning feat of emotional maturity that no one would have expected of him, put his hand over Adair’s mouth. He mumbled something that definitely ended with ‘-old man’, but luckily, the truly offensive part was obscured.

Eskel hissed “Adair, be quiet,” before turning to Master Osbert. “Master Osbert, how is Piotr?”

Osbert drew himself up, and giving Adair a particularly nasty look addressed Eskel, and _only_ Eskel. “His shoulder was damaged, there will be extensive scarring, but he’ll make a decent recovery,” There was a a collective sigh of relief. Osbert added, “there will be some reduced range of motion on that side. You can see him in a moment.”

And with that, the elder stalked off down the corridor, bemoaning the manners of children these days. Eskel rounded on Adair, and said bluntly, “You can’t just speak to elders like that.” The words ‘you idiot’ weren't said, but they were implied, as Lambert cuffed him round the back of the head. Geralt ignored them both and flung the door to the infirmary open, and stalked in. They bundled in and, much to their delight, they could see Piotr sitting up, heavily bandaged and eating some meat jerky. His face split into a wide grin at the sight of them. All eight of the other boys bundled into the room, clamouring to see if he was alright, noisily trying to steal his food, loudly retelling the encounter with as much embellishment as possible, and Gardis attempting to convince Lambert that Geralt had single handedly slayed the beast with clever use of a piece of string, a shoe and two acorns. Adair looked over at Geralt, who was silently standing off to one side. Noticing Adair was watching him, Geralt subtly rolled his eyes indicating with his head at the more and more extravagant storytelling and Adair erupted into giggles. They were all safe, relatively unharmed, and reasonably happy. That would do - for now.


	4. Old Speartip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> General sibling stupidity as the boys get older, and then the last terrifying trial - sneaking past Old Speartip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This concept for this chapter is taken from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. For those of you unaware of the details, it is an awful trial, very violent, and very dangerous. Trigger warning: Character deaths, death of a child, violence, serious peril.

The mission was simple. A few more steps. All Adair had to do was stay quiet, whilst the beast slept on. The rumbling, growling snores seemed to echo around the room, each one flashing a slither of long sharp teeth. His ability as a witcher's apprentice was on the line, his honour as a person, and possibly (depending what mood the beast was in) his life as well. The reward would be worth it, he just had to survive. Bracing himself, he fumbled quietly through his pockets looking for the his weapon. Holding it aloft, he edged further into the room. The creak of a loose floorboard betrayed him. Geralt's eyes snapped open. 

Panicking, Adair lobbed the water bomb just above the older boy's head. Geralt, who had thrown himself up and out of bed upon noticing the intruder, got hit - smack in the face. Geralt had never looked more like a furious wet cat. It was incredible. It was amazing. Adair allowed himself to admire the view for half a second, before spinning on his heel and sprinting full pelt down the corridor cackling manically as he went, knocking into Vesemir in his haste.

Geralt stormed through the castle, charging with a fury that rivalled a basilisk’s, if a slightly soggy one. "Adair!" he bellowed, "Adair! When I find you Riedbrune, you're gonna eat a mouthful of bloodmoss!" Following the scent like a bloodhound, Geralt tracked his evil younger brother through the armoury, across the training courtyard, and out to the stables. He breathed in deeply but couldn't isolate Adair's scent from the animals. Listening intently though, he realised something, or someone, was breathing almost silently, on the ledge above him. Quick as a striking bruxa, Geralt reached out, grabbed the boy by his belt and hauled him down onto the floor in front of him, dropping him haphazardly into a pile. Only to get another water bomb to the mouth. 

Adair’s giggling was cut off abruptly as Geralt picked him up by the lapel, and yanked him closer so they were almost nose-to-nose. He hadn't known it was possible to drip menacingly, but somehow Geralt managed it. "Adair," he almost purred, "it's such a shame brother." He gripped Adair by the back of the neck, twisted his arm behind his back and marched him to the front of the stables near to whether the recently piled up mountain of manure was sitting. 

"What's such a shame my dearest and bestest brother?" Adair grinned, smiling winningly at his very wet, very pissed off, older brother.

"Such a shame that you were just days away from being a fully qualified Witcher” he shock his head solemnly, “but you sadly died in an unfortunate manure accident," before launching the younger boy face first into the pile of horse manure. Geralt looked rather self satisfied despite his persisting dampness.

Adair heaved himself up and out of the disgusting pile, and flopped onto the grass, pouting morosely. From where Adair was laying, he could see Lambert and Voltehre having to prop themselves up against the wall because they were laughing so hard. "Well, shit." Adair said, looking down at his now-disgusting limbs. Geralt's eyes crinkled and his lips twitched up in something that could almost be considered a smile, if you squinted. 

Adair pushed himself up with surprising vigour, punched the air, and began jumping around pointing at Geralt's face, whooping in celebration. "Suck it Lambert! That's a smile, dickhead!" He did a poorly coordinated although enthusiastic victory dance on the spot, whilst Lambert ran over looking comically dismayed. "I fucking win asshole!" Adair crowed.

Lambert swore viciously, and Geralt's face went back to impassive, "Win what, Adair? Lambert?" His voice, although in it’s typical toneless cadence, went deeper, and infinitely more threatening as he advanced on his brothers.

Adair stumbled backwards while frantically explaining, "just a silly competition Lambert organised to see who could be first to-” he gulped before mumbling “first to get you to smile." His back hit the wall - there was nowhere to run.

Geralt's face barely twitched, but something ever so slightly mischievous painted over it. "This competition," he said slowly, "is why I woke with a water bomb to the face?" Adair nodded, desperately searching for exits. "So it's his fault?" He indicated with his head at Lambert, and Adair - the traitor - nodded quickly. Geralt, almost politely, turned to his brother who was looking ever so slightly apologetic and insincerely regretful, and said "Lambert?” Lambert looked at Geralt. Geralt bared his teeth. “Run," he hollered, before launching himself at the other boy.

By the time Geralt was done with them both, they were covered in sweat, shit and pig food. All three of them slowly trudged their way to the bathing pools. "Worth it." Adair whispered to Lambert as they trailed behind their victorious older brother. Lambert quirked a smile and held his fist out for a fist bump. Adair bumped it, only to have his wrist caught by the older boy twisted behind his back before he was placed in a headlock.

"And Lambert, remains the most vicious, the most highly skilled of the Witcher wolf school." Lambert loudly narrated, as he frogmarched his little brother to the pools. "Defeating even the vicious bomb wielding menace that haunts the towers!" he finished, as he shoved Adair fully clothed and flailing into the pool. Geralt rolled his eyes at their antics, and allowed himself to bask in the peaceful positive thoughts he often experienced around his brothers, awful and obnoxious as they so often were. He would miss this, he thought, when they were all graduated and off on their own adventures.

***

The final trial was tonight. If they completed this, they'd be fully fledged witchers. If, being the operative word. It was a trial they'd completed several times before, just with a twist, a very dangerous graduation, Vesemir supposed. When Master Elgar had suggested using the newly arrived Cyclops as a graduation test, Vesemir had objected fiercely. Two master witchers would struggle to fight a beast of that size, let alone some apprentices. But Osbert had countered that the point wasn't to fight the beast, just to sneak past it. A final test of stealth he'd said pompously, and the rest had agreed. It just seemed too risky to him, too dangerous, too much could go wrong. He'd been outvoted. And so now he was winding through the halls, searching frantically for Adair, despite knowing that he was likely the last person the boy would want to see.

Adair's year group were sitting in stunned silence. When they'd heard what the final trial was to be, Lambert had exploded with curses, punching and kicking the wall, throwing things, anything as an outlet for his rage. Eskel had stood quietly, said nothing, except headed out to the training grounds, and taking Adon with him to go wrestle because he needed to "fucking punch something." Adair was a tense, curled up ball of anger, and was glaring at the window like it had personally insulted his parentage. Geralt had sat next to the younger boy, a comforting hand on Adair's closest shoulder. With his other, he was sharpening the blade he'd wedged between his leg and the table. Unlike the others, Geralt could barely register fear, and he had to work incredibly hard to even notice apprehension, due to the additional trials he'd been put through - they were sensations that had been almost entirely removed. But the others in his year group were more susceptible - now that the explosive aggressive rage had filtered out, the nerves and fear were palpable, and had filled the room with their acrid stench. 

Vesemir looked at them, heart heavy. Yes, he agreed they needed to be trained and tested, and yes, he knew the chance of the old Cyclops awaking was slight - but the risk to the children if he did wake would be monumental. If he awoke whilst either group were in the caves, likely all would die. 

Knowing this, he kicked himself for asking "How are you feeling?" He knew how they were feeling, he could smell it for Melitele’s sake.

"How do you think we're feeling Vesemir?" Adair responded flatly, regarding the older man with obvious disbelief. 

Vesemir nodded like he was expecting that response, attempting to disguise his palpable wince. "The aim is stealth." He took a deep breath, looked at the boys before him and continued, "you're all brilliant at stealth. Get in, do it quick, get out again." Adair gave him a faint smile. "We'll be waiting at the circle for you all." He emphasised the last word - perhaps if he said it firmly enough that would force his hopes into reality. 

Adair bitterly interjected, "or the ones that make it at least." He looked like he regretted it as soon as he said it. Vesemir was trying, he should make more of an effort. “What chance do we have _against a cyclops_ Vesemir?” he asked despairingly. 

"Worst case scenario, and it wakes up," Vesemir asked, looking at all the gathered boys, "what do you know about cyclopses?" 

Geralt answered this one gruffly, "one eye. No depth perception." He was glaring at Vesemir, Adair squeezed his arm. 

Voltehre added, "yeah, their vision isn't great, especially in low light I think?"

"Exactly," Vesemir smiled weakly but encouragingly, "so quick darting movements are the best bet, as are projectiles. If you think you can cast a strong enough Axii that can work for a good few seconds as well," he hesitated, before saying "long enough to get away." 

Adair swallowed the vicious angry things he wanted to say and instead said, "thank you." He knew, despite Vesemir’s hopeful words that there was a distinct chance he might not return. He didn’t want his potential last words to Vesemir to be ones that hurt the ancient man. 

"You're... You're welcome boys." Vesemir looked around at all of them, his eyes brimming with emotion he wasn't supposed to have, and feelings he wasn't allowed to express. He wanted better for them, a real send off like the graduation trials had used to be. "This wasn't what I wanted for you, but I-" 

"What do you mean?" Adair cut him off with the question.

"I was outvoted, lad. But it's still a uh- a good test of stealth and I'm sure... I'm sure you'll all be fine." Vesemir said it like he was trying to convince himself of that sentiment, clapped Adair on the shoulder, nodded at Geralt before exiting the room. Unseen by the boys, he leaned on the wall, closed his eyes and prayed to any deity that might deign to listen, for their safety. 

The memory of that conversation was playing through Vesemir's head that evening, as he stood with the other elders, waiting for the boys to arrive. He remembered it as Geralt and Eskel stumbled up the path, half carrying Gardis who looked like he'd left half his arm behind in the caves, Piotr haggardly marching in silence behind them. He remembered the conversation as he heard the under-earth rumble of something very big, very powerful, and very angry moving about some distance away. He remembered it, as the time passed the point when Adair's group was supposed to arrive. He remembered it as Eskel and Piotr's expression grew more and more devastated, and Geralt went stiller and stiller until it looked as though he'd been carved from the very stone they were standing on. And he remembered that conversation when, after hearing some rocks falling, he heard a chorus of very young, very scared screams. 

Lambert, Adair, Adon, Voltehre and Larcin were the second group to venture through Old Speartip's cave. They'd said goodbye and good luck to their brothers, hugs and whispered words all round, they’d even received a very awkward arm pat, a head nod and an incoherent mumble from Geralt, and then they were alone. The wait was like a slow acting poison, the not knowing was even worse. Almost an hour passed, then, a flare of light lit up the sky as someone cast four shooting Igni bolts into the heavens high above them. 

"Four," breathed Adair, he turned joyfully to Voltehre next to him, grabbing him in ecstatic celebration. He grinned up at the boy, the only one in their group left who was still taller than Adair was.

Voltehre grabbed him across the shoulders and squeezed. "All four of the fuckers made it!" 

Lambert nodded, a combination of pleased and apprehensive. "Right. And we're gonna join 'em boys. Like Vesemir said. Get in, do it quick, and get out again." They all murmured in agreement. "We got this," he asserted, trying to convince himself as much as them. 

After a quick conversation, Lambert and Voltehre took point, Adon and Larcin took crossbow flank, and Adair was the rear guard. All had their weapons drawn. They'd run into a drowner, and the efficiency with which it was killed was stunning, Lambert hadn't even reached it before it was cut down by crossbow bolts. Larcin gave a silent salute and a cocky grin, and was about to strike a flexing pose, when a crack to the left echoed through the cavern. It was a grinding, crunching, cracking sound, and peering at it, Adair could only watch in horror as what looked like the biggest stalactite he had ever seen, cracked and plummeted to the rocky floor with a staggering crash. It was like a chain reaction had been activated. Stalactite after stalactite fell, scattering rock and debris across the cavern. Chunks of rock went flying, some bigger than they were. It was a deathtrap, a ready made graveyard, and they were standing in the middle of it.

They broke formation, running at full pelt, trying desperately to avoid the deadly jagged stone raining down around them. Lambert took the ledge at a running jump, turned and hauled Larcin up after him. Adair and Voltehre got their next, their long limbs making easy work of the six foot ledge, but Adon was lagging behind, and had jumped twice and missed it. The boys laid down on their stomachs, arms outstretched, reaching for the smaller boy, yanking him up and over the ledge. They flopped over, breathing heavily, panting like they'd just finished running a race. Relief filtering through the adrenaline like sunlight through trees. 

Then Larcin screamed. Abruptly, he stopped screaming. The sound of bones cracking filled the cave tunnel. The scent of blood filled the air. The sound of something very heavy moved right next to them. Then it roared. Lambert whispered, "fuck", and then they were running. Old Speartip was awake. 

"Fucking fuck!" Adair bellowed as they flew into the big hollowed out centre of the tunnels. "Okay. okay right. We've got our crossbows!” he shrieked, hoping the others could hear him as they flew through the tunnels. “Aim for the face. I'll try to get close enough to get a fucking Axii and then we'll run for it."

Lambert bellowed "you must be fucking joking asshole!" distress clear in his voice, before shouting, "I'll fucking do it, you lot shoot." 

They scrambled into strategic positions, as high as possible on the raised dais in the middle of the open space, and turned to face the charging monster. "I'm the fastest and shit shot anyway. You can't fucking stop me," Adair told Lambert, before launching himself forward. "Get the fucker’s face" he called behind him. 

Adair darted forward, slashed the left foot, then running right. Roaring, the Cyclops kicked out, missed, and was now off-balance. Adair stabbed it again, in the soft underside of its foot. Crossbow bolts struck and fell around the monster as they loaded again and again, barely scratching the beast. Adair sprinted behind, slashed again, other foot this time, leapt out the way just in time to miss it step backwards. Sprinting through the open legs, he dragged his sword through fleshy though meat as he ran, viciously twisting so he was face to face with the monster. Sparing as much concentration as he could, Adair felt the magic build, channelled it through him, and, feeling a wave of energy leave him, he cast the strongest Axii of his quite short life. 

The Cyclops stopped. Glowing white light painted it's skin. It blinked it’s one giant eye bemusedly. Adair was just stumbling backwards, back to the gathered three boys, when on Voltehre’s command, they all took aim and fired. Adon missed, getting an ear, but Lambert and Voltehre both hit what they were aiming for with their silver tipped bolts. The monster’s eye.

Splintering through the silence, the scream that the monster emitted was so staggering loud, Adair fell over backwards into Lambert. It was the worst noise he'd ever heard, and he didn’t think he’d ever forget the screaming of the trials. Their sensitive ears felt like they were bleeding from the volume. Dazed, they shook themselves and made to run towards where they knew the exit would be, when Voltehre stumbled and kicked a rather large rock, which rolled down the dais, clattering to the floor. The now blind cyclops launched to his feet and lunged towards the source of the noise. Blindly lashing out, the Cyclops swung a giant hand to where Adon and Voltehre were standing. Adon was knocked flying, he hit his back against the wall with a crunch, crumpled and didn't move again. There were only three people breathing now. Voltehre started screaming. 

Desperately, Adair flung another Axii at the monster again, grasped one of Voltehre's limbs, flung him over his shoulder and, grabbing Lambert's arm, sprinted past the monster - narrowly missing another murderous lunge - towards the tunnel that would lead them to the exit. Lead them to safety.

Voltehre was still wetly screaming, and the monster was still following blindly. But his screams were getting quieter, more choked with every second. They could see the exit, it was through a gap that Adair could barely fit through, let alone the Cyclops. They got through it, they’d be safe. Lambert went first, Adair quickly passed him Voltehre, before squeezing himself through. The monster slammed into the thick rock wall howling in frustration. He slammed again and again into the rock, screaming and roaring and snarling - but for all the beast’s noise, it was futile, he couldn’t reach them. 

They'd made it, the three of them. They'd done it. Adair felt dazed with relief, lightheaded from the quickly fading adrenaline. But a cry from Lambert brought Adair's thoughts to a crushing halt. Adair for the first time how wet and sticky he was, heart sinking as he jogged over to where the other two were. Lambert was covered in blood. Adair looked down. He was too. Then he looked at Voltehre. 

A growing puddle was spreading, as his brother gasped wetly. His leg was just… gone, and his chest was not the shape a chest should be. Springing into action, Adair hurriedly reached down to grab his brother's remaining hand, was about to heave him up, ready to run him to where the healers were waiting, when Lambert's hand on his shoulder clasped firmly, and pushed him to a standstill. 

"Stop, Adair. Just stop." He said quietly, gesturing to the still chest and silent, unmoving body. "He's fucking dead." His voice broke on the last word. Adair fell to his knees, grabbed his hair and screamed. Screamed for Larcin, for Adon, and for Voltehre, screamed away his rage and grief. Lambert was silent but no less affected. He put his arm around his younger brother and sat with him, eyes burning like fire with unshedable tears, grieving for the three lives lost this evening. It all seemed so fucking pointless.

When the two boys finally made it to the stone circle, more than twenty minutes later, they were dead eyed, blood covered and holding hands. They walked slowly, almost drifting spectre-like over to where the elders were gathered. The old witchers were shaken to their cores. They'd all heard Adair's scream. Geralt was slamming into them immediately, roughly, efficiently checking them over for injury. Eskel, not far behind pulled the two into a desperately rough hug.

"The others- Where are the others?" Piotr gasped, desperately disbelieving as he launched himself at his brothers. 

Adair said nothing, staring deadeyed at a haunted-looking Vesemir over Eskel's shoulder. Lambert answered Piotr. "Speartip woke up because of a fucking stalactite fall. Complete chance. They're all fucking dead."

Gardis finally managed to limp over to the group. His left side was covered in blood-soaked bandages, he’d heard everything despite his lack of speed. Without communicating, the boys clasped onto each other, clinging desperately to their remaining brothers, entirely unable to cry, but mourning the lives so callously thrown away for the pointless final trial. But this was the last one, their graduating trial. After this evening, they'd be free. 

There were six of them, six fully fledged witchers out of an original fifty-nine boys. Within the next decade, statistically four would die. The elders didn’t give a shit, didn’t care if they lived, didn’t even care if they were happy - but _he_ did. And as Adair lay in the pile of bedding they’d all hauled up to Lambert's room, for one last sleepover, before leaving this cursed fucking place the next morning, he swore that they would be happy. They would all be as happy as they fucking could in utter defiance of this awful place. He would fight himself bloody, he would sacrifice anything, do anything, give anything, to ensure his brothers happiness. And if destiny had a problem with that then he’d fucking well fight her too.


	5. Leaving Kaer Morhen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adair leaves Kaer Morhen, leaves his brothers, sets out alone, and makes a new friend on his first solo contract.

They awoke early. Almost as though they had decided in unison that this was enough. That it was time to leave now. Quietly, they gathered up their possessions, the basic survival kits they'd all been given, the two simple swords, one steel, one silver, and the basic leather armour. The sun was barely risen over the keep, and they'd eaten their breakfast and gathered by the front gate, that separated Kaer Morhen from the rest of the world. 

Adair just wanted to be gone. The emotional hangover of the last few days was overwhelming, even dulled and deadened as his emotions were, he still felt them. And right now he was vacillating between a blank yawning chasmic emptiness, and a viciously sharp stabbing grief tempered with harsh betrayal. It was too much. This place was heavy with spectres of the dead, and Adair felt as though he were drowning in them. 

Master Elgar said the traditional words of Witcher parting, extolling the virtues of The Path, absolutely not recognising the baleful looks and blank stares he was on the receiving end of, they were handed their medallions, and then it was done. They were witchers. They could leave. As they stepped outside the gates, and the rest of the elders had drifted off, only Vesemir remained. He slipped them all some salted meat for the road, some useful herbs and he gave them a woven leather bracelet that had a concealed thin wire garrott in it. He cleared his throat, almost awkwardly, "best of luck boys. Keep to The Path, stay smart and remember," he said tapping Adair's woven bracelet, "monsters are not always the most dangerous thing on the road." He gave them all a parting handshake or, in Geralt's case, a shoulder pat, and wished them well.

By unspoken agreement, they agreed to stay together until they reached the little village near the foot of the blue mountains. Geralt was the first to leave. He’d always had a preference for his own company, particularly when emotions were involved. Adair knew his brother felt things deeply, just differently to how they did, he would need to be alone to work through his grief for Adon, Voltehre and Larcin, but despite that knowledge Geralt's decision to leave so soon couldn't help but feel like a rejection. Speaking to them each quietly, he issued his goodbyes and well wishes, before lastly reaching Adair. Geralt's eyes crinkled, and then he opened his mouth before closing it and frowning. Adair ignored him, crossed the distance between them and wrapped Geralt in a tight embrace. Geralt gradually relaxed his ramrod-straight spine into a stiff but affection-filled hug, although it took several minutes. "I love you big brother," Adair told him seriously, "you better fucking stay safe, you hear me?" Geralt gave him a shoulder squeeze, a quiet ‘you too, idiot,’ and an eye crinkle and then he was gone. 

They stayed the night just outside the village, and then Piotr and Gardis were gone too with the rising sun. They had both decided to travel to Novigrad, wanting to see the sights of the famous city.

At lunchtime Eskel left. Boisterously, he tackled Lambert before helping him up and pulling him, squirming, into a big bear hug. Lambert pretended to try to escape for the sake of it, but the grin on his face betrayed him. Setting him down roughly, Eskel turned to face his youngest brother, only to find himself half smothered by Adair's flailing limbs. They clung onto each other before Eskel, told them to 'stay safe and not do any stupid shit', and then he was gone too.

By mutual unspoken agreement, Lambert and Adair travelled together for the next three weeks. Both still had nightmares about the caves, and neither could get the memories of their brothers' bodies out of their minds. Together they took on a minor contract for some drowners, and a slightly more complex contract for a werewolf, before they finally felt able to part at Ard Carriagh. Lambert, unable to put words to all the emotions boiling under the surface of their parting, gripped Adair tight to him and implored, "don't be a fucking hero kid. I won't say this shit to the others 'cause they won't fucking listen, but you stay safe," he pulled away and regarded him intently. "Do you fucking hear me? No one is worth your life, asshole." They hugged one last time, before Lambert pulled away and melted into the forest. Then, for the first time Adair could remember, he was well and truly alone. 

It was a novel experience, to be alone. First the pleasure house, then The Keep, then camping with his brothers, Adair had really never been truly alone, and he found himself enjoying the quiet - for the first day or so. By the end of the first week he was so desperate for company that he’d started speaking to the trees. The thing was, everything was so new, he wanted to tell someone, but there was no one to speak to. The few travellers he’d met had studiously avoided eye contact and carried on their way, the isolation was good for one thing, he’d been grieving. He'd had the time and the space to work through the confusing tangle of emotions, the heartbreak and loss, the betrayal and anger. He grieved for every single one of his brothers that hadn’t made it, for the violence that he’d had no choice in, and if he was honest with himself, he was grieving his relationship with Vesemir somewhat. He missed the old bastard, loved him like a father, but he honestly wasn’t sure if he could ever forgive the man, or if he even should. 

Adair stumbled onto his first contract by accident, by literally tripping over a mostly eaten body on the outskirts of a small town. To be honest, that was the least strange thing about the whole odd affair. The monster wasn't that unusual, not really, just literally everything else about the contract was just bizzare.

The village of Vergen, in northern Aedirn, was advertising for a Witcher to solve The Mystery of the Killer Pond. It sounded strange, and was enthusiastically dramatised on the sign, but they were offering two hundred crowns - so Adair wasn't going to say no.

The village alderman was a painfully sincere, balding man with premature wrinkles and a perpetually concerned expression. When he saw Adair bounding up to him with puppyish enthusiasm, trying to mask his delight at the opportunity to actually speak to another person, and half comprised of too long limbs and too big hands - the alderman's expression of concern deepened into genuine worry. Adair gave him his politest greeting, and began asking sensible questions, giving him the occasional reassuring smile, and trying his hardest to dispel the overpoweringly strong scent of worry and fear which permeated the room the longer they talked. He discovered that there was a pond a half hours walk from the village, it made strange noises and four people had disappeared now. He was pointed in the direction of one Myra Elisson for more details, who had apparently witnessed the beast. Politely he stood, smiled sweetly, and was just about to take his leave when the Alderman gripped his shoulder. Adair looked at him in confusion. 

Son," he began slowly, pausing to work out the right way to express himself, "please don't be offended, but don't you think someone a little more..." He trailed off and gestured to Adair's body. Adair did not follow. "Well, older. Shouldn't an older Witcher deal with this?" The Alderman doubted the boy before him was more than sixteen. Sure he was tall and well muscled, but he knew a child when he saw one, and Witcher or not, he wasn't about to let this kid go off to a bloody death without saying something. 

Adair blinked in surprise. And then he smiled sincerely and thanked the man for his concern. "I promise you, I've been really well trained,” he assured him, and then allowed himself to boast a little, “and I'm good at this." He grinned, then hesitated before saying softly, "and people are dying Alderman, people are dying and I can help. There may not be another Witcher through here for months." The Alderman sighed deeply at the truth of his words, bid the boy farewell, and prayed to Melitele for the lad's safety.

After speaking to the Alderman, Adair wound his way through the village to the little cottage on the southern side. He couldn't help staring as he walked, brimming with curiosity at the families and farmers going about their everyday business. Despite over a month on the road, it was still delightfully new to the boy. Finally he reached Myra Elisson's home. The smell of grief lingered in the walls of this place, and Adair braced himself for what would likely be an awful conversation with the wife of one of the recently deceased. 

"Hello?" He called softly, rapping his knuckles on the door and pushing it open. A tall, stout, brown-skinned woman, face streaked with age and hair streaked with grey glared fiercely at him from across a well-made wooden table, her hands trapped in a thick dough. 

"What do you want boy?" The tone was harsh and aggressive, Adair had never seen someone menacingly knead dough before, but she was doing it masterfully. 

Trying to project confidence, Adair explained, "the Alderman sent me. I'm Adair aep Riedbrune-"

"Nilfgaardian are you?" She cut him off tersely, eyeing him with clear suspicion.

"Um-” Adair thought for a moment. He didn’t think he was, but he also didn’t really know, and he definitely didn’t want to lie to this dough wielding woman. He had the niggling sense that it would be very bad to lie to her. “I don't really remember?” He hesitated before forging onward with admirable bravery. “But I'm the Witcher assigned to-"

"You? A witcher? I didn't realise there were Witcher children.” Adair thought that was quite unfair, she could have at least called him a youth or a teenager, he obviously wasn’t a child. His mulish thoughts must have been written across his face, because Myra laughed, not unkindly, before warning him with a shake of her head, “boy, the drowned dead will eat you for breakfast."

"They won't Mrs Elisson.” He tried to be reassuring. “I know I'm youngish looking,” she snorted, “but I am a Witcher and I've been trained to kill these my whole life I swear, I just want to help." She regarded him intently, it felt like his every thought and impulse was being examined by the grumpy older woman.

"Hmm." she said, which didn’t really explain anything.

Adair mentally squared his shoulders and steeled himself."Can I ask you some questions about what you saw?" He asked politely, only to wince at the scent of sharp stabbing grief as it filled the air. 

Myra turned away, looked back down at the table, her face betrayed nothing, but the smell of her grief was potent, leaking out into every crevice of the small house."I've got bread to bake boy,” she said tonelessly, “and now that I've no husband,” she took a sharp intake of breath and closed her eyes, the smell spiked even stronger, “to put food on the table..." she trailed off and Adair felt awful. 

"Well then, how about I'll help while we talk?” he offered, jumping up and taking them both by surprise. He carried on speaking, trying and failing not to babble in his awkwardly concerned way, “I'm good at bread, and kneading, and I er- well to tell you truth I got sent to the kitchens a lot as punishment." He probably shouldn’t have said that.

"Oh?" Her face twitched. Well-versed at reading tiny expressions in people who didn’t want their feelings to be obvious (Geralt), Adair gave himself a mental high five as he noted that she was staving off a smile. So he continued. 

"Yup. Master Osbert said I was an irritant and a nuisance,” this was true, it was rather hurtful and entirely undeserved in Adair’s opinion. “and he didn't trust me when I was bored, so he liked to give me things to do." Adair had become a rather good cook as a consequence, and a marvellous herbalist. Many afternoons of sorting leaves and flowers, cutting up things he’d rather not look at, mixing potions over and over etc. He could probably mix up a batch of white honey in his sleep.

"Alright then Adair the Nuisance," she laughed once, and although the scent of grief remained, it was tempered with amusement and an underlying happiness. Myra almost seemed surprised at herself, "you may assist me," she said it like she was granting him a great honour, and Adair bounded up next to her, watched what she did intently and followed her example. He worked the dough in front of him with enthusiasm, asking question after question, using his nose as much as his ears to ascertain which were acceptable questions to ask the still-grieving widow. 

Quickly, he'd got all the information he had needed, but they carried on chatting whilst he worked more and more dough on the old wooden table. Adair knew he was missing company, but he hadn’t realised quite how much until he realised a full two hours had passed. She told him of her fears of poverty, and missing her grown-up, far away children, her grief and anger at the loss of her husband, and the love she still had for him. He exchanged the still-heavy grief for his fallen brothers, and his fear for his still living brothers out on the treacherous Witcher Path. Absently plaiting the last of the dough into bread wreaths, he realised his companion had fallen silent. She turned to him, and with a fearsome intensity, she peered at him, eyes hard, broking no protestation. "You will stop by here when you have emptied that cursed pond." She stated factually. "You will stop by here, let me reassure myself you are uninjured, and I will gift you a boon." He nodded, confused by her abrupt shift into an archaic pattern of speech. He was about to protest that he was already getting paid, but seeing something uncompromising in her gaze, he fell silent. Instead, he cleaned his hands of dough, gathered her hand in his, kissed it with a sweet, cheeky grin, a flouncing bow - which Myra rolled her eyes at - and left, promising a safe return. 

The pond was dark and stagnant, and he could smell the drowners before he saw them. Although the sound was muffled by water, there were three heartbeats. One of the drowners was pacing at the edge of the water making this even easier. Padding silently over to within a single sword's-length of the beast, he lunged, decapitating it in an instant. Lured by the smell of freshly spilled blood, the other two beasts exited the pond and pounced at Adair. Two swipes of his silver sword later and they were in pieces. The entire fight had lasted less than a minute. Gathering up the heads of the drowners had taken more time than actually killing them. Slowly, enjoying the late afternoon sunshine, Adair wandered his way back to Vergen.

The Alderman's bemusement at seeing him again so soon quickly faded into an awed wonder as he was presented with the heads of the three drowners. "Thank you, you blessed boy," he breathed, eyes shining bright with gratitude. "Here." He gave Adair the promised two hundred crowns, and tried to give him more but Adair refused. He'd almost accepted it, but he could feel the hovering spirit of a disapproving Geralt hanging over him, pointing out the damaged stables and broken well, he'd have been blind to not notice the obvious poverty of these people. 

"Alderman, I thank you, I really do but I can't take any more of this town's money," Adair protested gently, as he gave it back to the man. "If you must give it away, give it to the families of those who've lost someone to the drowner, give it to Myra," he suggested thinking of her earlier money worries. 

As he left, the Alderman considered everything he had ever heard about Witchers, their cold unfeeling ruthlessness, their inhumanity, their greed for coin. He examined it all before mentally throwing it away and setting it on fire. Rubbish and poppycock. He would sing the praises of witchers till the day he died. It still felt wrong to watch the boy leave, so obviously young, puppyish excitement and wonder at the world, knowing he would be facing monsters, but he was well trained as he had reassured the Alderman. "You must come and visit Witcher," the Alderman said with a smile. "You and yours will always be welcome in Vergen."

Adair tried not to look too much like he was skipping with joy. He failed abysmally but he didn't care. He'd done a good job, his first job alone too, possibly made another friend, and now he was off to see Myra again. He could smell her house from one hundred metres away. The smell of freshly baked bread was wafting out of her hut and down the dirt track, and he followed his nose. The door was open and he went inside. 

Myra was waiting for him. "It's done," he said softly, looking at the older woman and taking her hand in his, "your husband had been avenged." Myra gripped his hand tight and yanked him down into a fierce hug. Whilst hugging him, Adair noticed a subtle change in her scent. She smelt of bread and humanity and sweat, but also, getting stronger, was the smell of ozone, and electricity and storms. Then she started to speak. It was not any language he had ever heard before, sounding like a blur of syllables more than actual words. It froze Adair rigid, as the crushing weight of the blurring syllables seemed to press on him from all sides in a gentle but immovable pressure. As she pulled away, his eyes flickered down, and met the giant, too wide, pupil-less navy irises of one of The Fey. Still speaking the strange language, she grasped Vesemir's woven leather bracelet in one hand, and his wolf medallion in the other. The energy, the power, the chaos, was gathering now, pulling at Adair's hair and pricking at his skin, and still Myra spoke on. The crescendo was building, the smell deepening, there was pushing pressure on his eardrums - and then it stopped. 

Adair gasped for breath like he'd just ran a mile. Myra was Myra again, looking pleased with herself, and entirely human. "Myra," he breathed, astounded. She rolled her eyes and gave him a hard shove causing him to stumble. "Myra what was that?"

She eyed him. "As you have avenged my family, I have helped you to protect yours." Looking at his still slightly nonplussed expression she rolled her eyes. "That, boy," she said pointing at his bracelet, "will let you find them. Don’t matter where they are, or what human magical rubbish protects them, you'll find them. And that," she said pointing at the medallion, " will warn you if they're in, or near, trouble. You'll get one day and one night's advance warning, that's all I can give you," she grinned, her mischievous eyes twinkling with something not quite human. "Thank you, oh great Nuisance of Riedbrune," giving him a mockingly flouncing bow of her own. She escorted him to the door, and eyed him sternly, "you will come back and visit. And you will stay safe." Her tone was heavy, fierce and oddly echoing. It sounded prophetic. The door slammed leaving Adair feeling very much like he'd been hit over the head with something rather heavy. 

As he wandered out of Vergen and onto the next village, he tested his bracelet. He thought of Lambert, and immediately felt a pull south west, knowing - somehow, he was in Vizima. He thought of Piotr and was pleasantly surprised to find him still in Novigrad, Gardis had left him apparently and gone west. Eskel and Geralt were within a league of each other, near Lyria, although travelling in opposite directions. Geralt was going horrifically fast, meaning he must have acquired a horse somehow. He always had liked horses. 

Adair was overwhelmingly grateful, not only did he know where his family were, but he knew they were safe, that they were alive. It was the best gift anyone could have given him.


	6. Interludes on The Path: Lambert

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adair runs into Lambert, fights a cockatrice and gets an update on the gossip.

Adair quickly realised the welcome he'd received in Venger was deeply abnormal. The minute his medallion and his eyes were clocked in most towns, he was given a wide berth, initially. Despite that however, Adair also quickly realised he absolutely was not at all what people expected witchers to be, and they reacted in all manner of differing ways to their surprise. 

After nearly four years on The Path he looked no older, people still addressed him as ‘boy’, and to his eternal desolation, he still had yet to sprout even a single facial hair. In addition he had not lost one ounce of curiosity and enthusiasm for the world outside the walls of Kaer Morhen, although he definitely was more deliberate with wielding both emotions. He'd realised early on, the boon that his face and manner were. The general populace envisioned witchers as terrifying grizzled mutant soldiers, emotionless and beastial. It was a perception that even the most prejudiced of souls struggled to maintain when Adair bounded up, brimming with curiosity, and started politely but voraciously asking them all manner of questions about their business or their skills, or offered to help various people with their baking, or played ludicrous games of hides and seek with the village orphans. Adair, with his seemingly boundless youthful energy, just didn't fit. By far, the most common thing anyone said to him, was after several minutes of observation, "you're a rather young Witcher aren't you boy?" He had quickly learnt the important lesson of the value of public perception, and effortlessly projected a youthful enthusiasm that softened even the hardest of hearts.

Most of the time it was a massive advantage. One that Adair was well aware of and frequently encouraged. Educated as he was from his time in the Aine, he knew how to act, how to express, how to project emotions, how to exude one particular feeling or another through body mannerisms and expressions etc, and by this point he had been practising visibly projecting his emotions for years, it was almost (although not quite) reflexive. Most of the time it was an advantage, but now was not one of those times. 

"No lad. I can't in good conscience send a boy younger than my grandson off to 'is death." The farmer said firmly, "My wife would 'av my hide." Adair wanted to scream in frustration. People were dying, and he was a Witcher, he could help! He was about to launch into a very impassioned defence of his skills with detailed explanations of exactly how he would and could help, when a voice cut him off. 

"Adair what the fuck have you got yourself into this time?" Undiluted joy poured over Adair's expression, as a blinding smile lit up his face, in complete contrast to the gruff aggressive tone. The farmer watched alarmedly, as the boy launched himself in a grappling hug at the speaker, a tall, dark haired, well-muscled Witcher, who may have been the most intimidating man he'd ever seen in his life. He half expected the obviously older Witcher to pull a knife on the boy, only to see him quickly flash a fond grin and grab the boy in a hug, before giving him a gentle push, getting the boy to release him. 

Adair grabbed the man by the arm and began tugging him over to speak with the farmer, chattering all the way. "And Lambert is that another scar? You have to be more careful! I'll tell Eskel you need to practice your Quen next winter." The farmer was reminded of those big terrifying guard dogs that get befriended by tiny puppies. Not that the boy was small, he was a head taller than the man. The Witcher, Lambert, rolled his eyes at the boys fussing, but his eyes were crinkled showing his obvious pleasure. 

"Mr. Hebron?" The farmer nodded at them both, "this is my older brother Lambert, would it be better if we both looked at the Cockatrice nest?" Understanding and amusement filtered into Lambert's face as he quickly took in the situation.

Nodding gravely to the farmer, he said earnestly, "Thank you, sir, for looking out my little brother. I'll keep him safe." Mr. Hebron heaved a sigh of relief. He was sure the boy wielded his blades well enough, but he could do without the death of a child on his conscience. He waved them off just to hear the boy grumpily tell his big brother that he didn't need his help, or looking after and that he was a grown up. Mr. Hebron chuckled to himself. It seemed Witcher boys had a whole lot more in common with human ones than he would have expected. Grinning to himself, he went back to ploughing his grain field.

"How come," Adair demanded, "that bullshit never happens to any of you? Pretty much one in five of my jobs people take one look at me and can't bear to let the precious child come to harm." Lambert's cackling laughter at the situation was noted and ignored. “I am one, ONE year younger than you! And," Adair was working himself up into an indignant fury, "how come all of you lot, look like adults? Someone asked me where my parents were the other day? And why was I travelling alone?" It had been sweet, he'd become entirely flustered and bungled his way through an explanation. "I ran into Gotian the other day, you know three years younger, good with an axe? He has a beard Lambert! A beard!" Adair was the picture of abject misery, Lambert laughed and slung an arm round his brother's shoulders. 

"Hey baby bro," Adair shoved him, hard. "We all have our weakness, Eskel's is pretty women, Geralt's is expressing an emotion, mine is being just too charmingly handsome and too suave, and yours is you still look thirteen." Laughing uproariously, he dodged the punch Adair slung at him, and they carried on, trading barbs, towards where the farmer had suggested the cockatrice would be.

Lambert, who had returned to Kaer Morhen the previous winter was updating Adair on the gossip, pulled his silver sword out, stabbed it into the mud and leant on it whilst watching his brother eye the cockatrice tracks. "Vesemir and Elgar have had a fall out, not sure over what but no one gives a shit because it means Elgar stays away and noone likes the mean old fucker. Oh! And Eskel the charming bastard that he is, has been sleeping with basically everything with legs in Temeria-" as he was speaking Adair spotted the juvenile cockatrice that was causing so much concern for the villagers, and drew his sword, charging forward. 

Lambert, knowing his brother would hear him, carried on with his update, "oh yeah, Piotr got himself a little knocked about, the idiot, his bad shoulder you know," Lambert bit his lip pensively. "I really don’t know if he should be out on his own, his arms getting worse." Loudly, he sighed. 

Adair lunged forward stabbing the throat and then ripping his sword with him as he darted to the side. Bringing the sword down again, he danced back, just missing a raking swipe of the four inch long claws. "Oh fuck Adair, and Geralt," Lambert started giggling, "Geralt's found himself a girlfriend!" Adair activated a Quen shield, before continuing to exchange blows with the enraged cockatrice, before finally bringing a slamming strike to its neck, stabbing in, and twisting it. He turned to his still laughing older brother, rolled his eyes and began collecting the useful cockatrice parts and the trophy for the farmer. 

"Geralt," Adair said firmly, "does not have a girlfriend. No way. Absolutely not," he shook his head emphatically, "I don't believe it."

Lambert laughed so hard he slipped off his sword. His arms pinwheeled as he tried not to careen headfirst into the floor. “No,” he said breathlessly between giggles, “but you don't understand. So Geralt slept with this woman, thinking she was a prostitute,” unable to catch his breath he laughed hysterically again, still on the floor. Adair couldn’t help but grin at his antics. Lambert carried on, “spoiler, she wasn't. But somehow, she's gone and convinced herself that he's the love of her life and loves how mysterious he is,” Adair and Lambert fell about laughing. Adair could imagine how much his brother would have hated the entire situation. Between breathless laughter, Lambert continued, “She never shuts up. She’s been writing him poetry about their epic love story.” 

Adair pushed himself up onto his knees, and pulled himself up. “She sounds awful.” He paused, thinking it over “I love it, and she has my permission to marry him.” They glanced at each other and erupted into breathless giggles. “I’m gonna be a bridesmaid!” Adair cackled, yanking his brother to his feet. 

Lambert grinned, “He's terrified of her,” he leaned forward conspiratorially, “it's incredible, I've literally never seen him so grumpy.” Adair laughed at the thought of his reserved taciturn brother, being tailed by an enraptured poetess and decided there and then that he would paint the image and give it to his brother for Yule. 

“That may be the best thing I've ever heard.” Adair stated happily.

“You…” Lambert cut himself off, before saying hesitantly, “you could hear it in person if you came to Kaer Morhen this winter?” It was a tentative question, one that was asked despite knowing the answer would be negative. 

Adair gave a sharp exhale. “I'm not coming back Lambert,” he stated bluntly. 

“It's been five, nearly six years, kid.”

“And it's not been long enough,” he said cuttingly, ending that line of conversation. “not for me. Say hello to the boys for me, yeah?” He couldn’t go back, couldn’t look at that fucking keep. It was dripping in blood. There were children there now, waiting to die, waiting to undertake their trials and Adair didn’t trust himself not to try and break them out and slaughter all the elders if he had to. That’s why he wasn’t going back. He was so practised at expressing his emotions, he had to clamp his hands into fists to stop himself shaking in rage. 

They walked back in a sad but companionable silence to collect the reward from the farmer. Adair said nothing whilst Lambert pretended to be weepily proud of his baby brother killing a giant rabid cockatrice all on his own! And only eye rolled minimally when Lambert ruffled his hair, grappled him in a rough hug, holding his brother tight to him. 

"You stay safe kid, y'hear? Lambert breathed the scent of his brother in deeply, before releasing him, giving him a shoulder squeeze and departing down the dirt track, headed for Sodden. 

Adair had been on his own for less than an hour when a sudden pulsing burning took him by such surprise, he nearly fell off his horse, a black and white Appaloosa he’d named Maggie. Suddenly, into his mind's eye burst the image of Eskel, blood splattered, panting wetly, groaning in pain. As Adair watched, he fell still and silent. Slamming back into awareness, he realised that his medallion and bracelet were humming with magic, almost vibrating with it. Frantically, he focused on his brother. Eskel was in Glevan, fourteen hours on a quick horse. Calling Adair's horse quick, was flattering on a good day, and a lie on a bad one. And, if Myra's gift was in any way accurate, he was going to be in mortal peril in twenty four hours. It was dusk now. By dusk tomorrow, if Adair did nothing, his brother would likely be dead. Frantically, turning his horse left at the crossroads, and trying to calm his infectious panic spreading through his body, he focused intently on Eskel’s location.

Spurring his horse in the direction of Eskel, Adair launched them forwards, and they disappeared into the night.


	7. Scars and Other Landmarks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adair tracks down Eskel, and finds him unconscious in a monster nest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is fairly AU - but it is the story of how Eskel gets his scars. There are some elements of violence, there is also a verbal argument between some characters that contains cursing, and some threats, as well as mild body horror, and a character attempting to come to terms with severe scarring. 
> 
> Edit: Eskel's reaction is based on a reaction I had, when faced with serious scarring following a car crash and operation a few years ago. I am in no way trying to suggest there is anything wrong with scarring, or anyone who has scars, and I am absolutely not trying to cause offence, however I remember seeing my body, and being horrified - and I imagine Eskel would have felt something similar if he received them at a young age.

Flying like the wild hunt was on his trail, Adair sped through the forest. It was alive with noise, a raucous racket created by the various creatures that came out with the moonlight, but he ignored them all, focusing all of his attention on getting to his brother as quickly as possible. He didn't know what would be awaiting him when he reached Eskel. He didn't know what sort of a situation he would be riding into, but he raced onwards, heedless of the likely terrible danger at the other end of his journey. 

Adair sped through the forests, passing with such speed he was like a whisp of mist in the dark night. The woods quickly faded into rocky grasslands, and then even quicker into fields of wildflowers stretching as far as the eye could see. As the sun rose, he knew he would have to stop to eat and allow Maggie an hour of rest if he were to get to Eskel in time. Stopping by a little stream, he led her over to take a long drink, have a quick bite to eat, before settling in for an hour meditation. It passed quickly, and then they were back in motion. 

The fields of flowers quickly blended into acres and acres of farmland, and as the sun passed midday, he went through his first village. Launching himself off his horse, he ran up to the wary villagers who were eyeing him apprehensively, and begged them, "please, have any of you seen my older brother? He's a witcher like me, dark haired, broad like this," he said indicating Eskel's height and width with his hands, "has a medallion like mine?" His desperate entreaties were met with mutters of 'just passed through last night', and 'was headed to Branwaith I heard'. "Thank you, thank you!" Adair shouted over his shoulder, about to pull up on his horse, when the town herbalist stopped him. 

"Is everything alright lad?" she asked hesitantly, eyeing his witcher medallion. "You look mightily frightened." She spoke in calm soothing tones like Adair was a spooked horse. "He's a grown man, a witcher," she reassured him, "he'll be alright." 

Adair gave her a fierce look, "he's my brother and he's in danger." He bit his lip, looking worried. "I think he's in serious danger. He definitely headed to Branwaith?" She nodded, and he pulled himself up onto his horse. 

"I'm headed that way on foot, if he's injured lad, or in trouble, bring 'im to me, I'll be at the healer's hut. I'm Anwynn," she held her hand out and briefly shook his. 

Adair nodded his assent and dissapeared off into the distance, following the signs for Branwaith. 

***

By the time he got to the little town, the sun was low in the sky. Adair leapt off his saddle, and grabbed the first person he saw, and enquired after Eskel. "Sure, I seen 'im lad." The toothless old man nodded, and indicated towards a wealthy-looking merchant, "He's doing some work for Branagh." 

Adair flew over to Branagh, getting right into the man's face, demanding, "where did you send my brother?"

"What's it to you _boy_?" He spat the word boy at Adair like it was a curse word, then he smiled nastily, speaking in a patronising tone, "the witcher will be back soon, I'm sure."

"No, he won't." Adair clutched his medallion desperately with one hand, whilst tightening his expression to a frozen glare. He bit out, "Where in Lilit's name did you send him? You bastard." A crowd was beginning to gather around the two of them now. Adair, clearly young and distressed, getting right up in the face of what looked like the wealthiest man in town was surely going to provide them some kind of entertainment. 

"He's clearing out a griffin nest for me, down by Dwarrow way." The man responded smugly with a put-upon air. "Three hundred crowns, very good deal." He grinned smugly up at Adair and glanced around, acknowledging the gathered crowd with a flicker of his eyes.

Adair's eyes narrowed."... you're telling me," he said slowly, mockingly, "that my brother accepted clearing out an entire fucking nest of griffins. Griffins, plural," he paused for emphasis, watching the man before him bluster. "For a measly three hundred crowns?" His voice shook with rage, as he shouted in the spluttering, oily man's face. "You must think I don't know my brother, or perhaps I don't know my trade," Adair finished dangerously. 

Branagh was flustered. "Well, clearly you don't," he shot back, "as he fucking accepted, _boy_."

Adair was tired and pissed off. He'd ridden for nearly twenty-one hours straight with only a one hour meditation. He wanted to strangle this awful man. And he was terrified for Eskel. "How many griffins did he think he was killing?" he asked, straight out.

In a pompous voice, Branagh started, "I don't know what you're-"

"HOW MANY?" he screamed in the merchant's face, and watched him appear to deflate. 

Branagh mumbled, "Just er- well," his eyes darted around looking at the sizeable crowd apprehensively. "Just er, the one."

White hot fury rushed through Adair's veins like lava. "So you sent my brother, one of the best witchers in the north, out to die against a nest of griffins. Gave him incorrect information, deliberately endangered him. _To save yourself some fucking coin?_ " Adair drew a dagger from his hip and flipped it between his fingers. Breathing deeply, he reminded himself that he really didn't want to publicly eviscerate this man.

Seeing the dagger, the man really started panicking. "Now, really I -"

Adair's voice dropped into a terrifyingly calm-sounding cadence that was honestly more scary than when he was shouting. "If you have sent my brother to his death, one of the last remaining members of my family," he darted forward, knife pressed hard against the man's throat, and watched him breathe shallowly, sweating in fear. "I will fucking kill you and salt the ground with your bones, you piece of shit" He watched the man panickedly panting for another long moment before in a single motion sheathing his blade, and stepping out of range. 

Now he wasn't immediately under threat of death-by-dagger, Branagh felt safe enough to puff up and shout. "I am Branagh of Branwaith, boy, and I-"

Adair whipped around, leapt forward and slung a punch at the man's face. His nose shattered under the witcher's fist, bleeding everywhere. "And I am Adair Aep Reidbrune, and if you have killed my brother I swear to you now you will die with my sword in your throat." The whole town heard his declaration. Adair was expecting recrimination, outcry, shouting and wailing, but instead all he heard was approving whispers. 

The toothless old man came up next to him, gently put his hand on Adair's shoulder, and steered him to his horse, his chest heaving, eyes burning. Behind him he could hear the whispers. 'Poor kid', 'his older brother, the poor dear', and 'fucking Branagh' were just some of the many angry mutters of the righteously furious townsfolk, Branagh was almost universally hated anyway, and this appeared to be the last straw for many, watching the panic and fear etch deep lines into the youthful face of a distraught boy looking for his big brother, even if he was a witcher. Adair heard one woman say to another, "I didn't even know witcher's could have family, oh Lannie, it's too horrible." He felt for his bracelet. Eskel was still alive. For now. He thanked the old man, nodded at his wishes of good luck, swung himself up on Maggie, and galloped, full tilt, following the signs for Dwarrow. 

***

Racing at speed through the narrow country lanes, guided by the tugging directions from the bracelet and the occasional signs for Dwarrow, Adair flew like the wind. He was getting close, almost on top of where he knew Eskel to be. Straining his ears, he could hear some sort of horrific commotion nearby. 

The trees grew too dense so Adair leapt off of Maggie, and started running in the direction of the sounds. As he sprinted, he passed the twisted dead body of an adult male griffin, in full mating plumage, one wing severed, feathers scattered everywhere. As he continued running he passed the corpses of two more young griffins, but scattered around them, in between the thick dark griffin blood, and broken feathers, was a worrying amount of bright red human blood.

Adair dodged branches and tree trunks, launching himself over called trees and splintered broken bits of wood. A horrific battle had occurred here, recently, mere minutes before, he just had to hope he'd be in time. Vaulting over a fallen log, he entered a clearing, largely destroyed by gargantuan bodies trudging through the area repeatedly, he was nearing the nest. As ran, he dragged his silver sword from its sheath.

There was so much blood. The smell hit him like a wave, quickly followed by a clawing fear, when Adair couldn't see anything moving. He sprinted into the centre of the clearing, seeing the fatally injuried, but still breathing griffin, struggling on clearly broken legs to try to pull itself upright in the presence of the latest threat. To the right, half hidden by a large shrub, was a motionless body of a human man. It had a scent Adair knew the same way he knew the exact shade of Geralt’s hair, the scent of Piotr’s favourite sword oil, the sound of Gardis’s humming and Lambert’s voice when he was particularly pissed off. It was his brother, and he wasn’t moving.

Adair launched into action. Swinging his sword across his body for maximum momentum, he brought it down upon the uninjured left wing closest to him, pausing just long enough to note the crunch of bones, he feigned right, before changing the sword direction and stabbing down straight into the griffin’s body. It howled and hissed, and brought both sets of front claws raking down. Adair jumped back, but was just caught on his sword arm. Hissing in pain he darted forwards again, and unleashed a barrage of blows straight to the beast’s panting, exposed neck. With a final fearsome swing of his sword to the griffin’s body, it finally fell still. 

Dropping his sword, Adair, dashed over to where Eskel lay, Adair felt his heart sink as he rapidly took in the size of the puddle around him. As he got closer he could hear his brother’s heart still beating, but it was fast, even by a regular human’s standard, which was then doubly concerning for a witcher. Gently turning him over, Adair couldn't suppress his harsh intake of breath and the burn of tears in his eyes. Eskel's face had been savaged, the griffin had clearly got a solid hit to his face, three claws at least. But the worrying wound, the dangerous one, was across his chest. It was the source of most of the blood. Hurrying, Adair rinsed the wounds off, bound them as tight as he could before forcing an entire phial of Swallow, and a half measure of White Honey down Eskel's throat. Then he gave him one of the expensive healing potions he'd picked up in Novigrad last time he'd stopped by. Hauling him up onto Maggie, he set for Branwaith at a truly dangerous speed, hoping, praying that he’d get to the healer in time.

By the time Maggie was riding up to Branwaith, night had fallen, and Eskel still hadn't stirred. As they galloped through the town in the direction of the healer’s house, some of the townsfolk peered out their doors and windows to see who was riding through their town at this time of night. Upon seeing Adair, soaked with blood, propping up a limp body in front of him, some offered silent prayers for healing and strength, some cursed Branwaith and his selfish avarice, but many more just hid in their homes, terrified of the sight of a wild-eyed, blood covered witcher, holding what appeared to be a dead body, and storming through their town. 

As he arrived outside the healer’s house, an elderly woman with tightly plaited streaky grey hair appeared at the open door, apron on, table cleared, almost like she'd been expecting them. "Bring the lad in," she ordered Adair, before turning in her heel. Looking over her shoulder she said, “we’ve been waiting for you,” Adair shook off his confusion, before gently lifting Eskel off the horse and, as carefully as he could, carried the hulking man across the threshold. Setting him gently on the healer's table, Adair's heart clamped and seemed to crumple as he noticed that his tight bindings were soaked through with blood. Carefully, he pushed back the hair from his brother's gashed and still sluggishly bleeding face, wishing more than anything that Eskel would wake. Witchers could heal a lot, but there was a limit on how much blood they could lose. 

He glanced up at the sound of a second set of footsteps, only to find himself face to face with Anwynn. "Oh, dearheart," she murmured sadly, taking in his expression, and pulling him into a tight hug. "You found him darling, you did so good," she crooned at him, stroking his hair. Adair heard his breath catch, as he dryly sobbed into her apron. 

The healer, Gwenyth, worked tirelessly through the night. First cleaning and packing the wounds, then stitching them, then healing potions, then applying sealing salve to encourage the wounds to close up, and attempting to encourage Eskel to drink as much water as possible. Anwynn helped her, holding her hair back, mixing the concoctions as she went, handing Gwenyth thread and salve as she needed it, with an encouraging squeeze and a familiar tired smile. More than once, they both remarked on the fantastic swiftness of their patient's healing, wishing wistfully that all their patients were so blessed. At this the two women looked deeply into each others eyes, heavy with grief and loss, clearly recalling times when witcher healing would have saved lives. Adair looked at his brother. Eskel didn't look blessed, with his blood splattered, pallid skin, stitches across his body, across his face, his damaged and torn armour, and his very still, barely breathing body - he looked dead.

Adair sat in a tense vigil all night. After numerous offers to help, Gwenyth eventually showed him how to mix up the sealing salve, and Anwynn had him stitching some of his less vital wounds, of which there were many. Anwynn had asked him to relay the details of the fight, and upon learning the man before her had fought and killed three griffins and had injured a third, her eyes grew as wide as stars. Both women were furious to learn of Branagh's deception, but Gwenyth sternly threatened to sit on Adair if he made good on his promise to go after the man. 

As dawn broke, Anwynn muttered something to Gwenyth, and slipped out the door, leaving with a brief kiss on the healer’s cheek. Gwenyth rolled her eyes at the other woman’s back. "Never did have a lick of sense,” she muttered. “Help me turn him over, boy." She barked at Adair. Adair sprang up, nearly tripping over the table leg, and hastened to help her. 

Eskel's colour was slowly returning, his breathing was getting easier, and Adair was just about to check his bandages again, when the sounds accompanying a rather large gathering of people filled the streets. Muttering about "that woman", whilst playing with a wedding band on her fourth finger, Gwenyth grumpily flung the door open and, indicating sharply with her head, made Adair come with her. Branagh was there. He’d clearly had better days, as he was kneeling in front of the house. His hands were trembling, and his eyes were darting about frantically, the smell of urine was strong in the air. It might have had something to do with the extremely irate Anwynn standing behind him, a twinkling glint in her eye that was at once both mischievous and terrifying, or possibly to do with the dagger at his back. 

"That witcher lies on death's door because of you, you unfathomable cad," Anwynn spat at him, "he saved us, saved us all, killing four griffins,” speaking to the crowd, she gestured at the kneeling man, “saved us all despite this whoreson's lies!" At the sounds of the crowd jeering and shouting, she prodded the prone man with her foot. "Pay!" Anwynn snarled, her statement followed closely by cheers. Branagh produced a huge bag of crowns, Adair guessed there might have been close to a thousand in total, much much more than the promised three hundred. 

As Adair stepped forward to accept the money, Gwenyth started speaking. Her voice was brusque, and she was addressing the gathered crowd more so than Branagh. "I have worked all night attempting to keep life in the witcher. It has not been easy.” She looked down at Branagh, disdain clearly etched across her face. “You very nearly killed him with your actions, foolish, selfish man. What would we do if witchers no longer ventured into Branwaith?" She hissed at him rhetorically, "if they no longer dealt with our griffins and cockatrices and hags? Self-centred and short-sighted. Losing money may be difficult, but your punishment shall be more serious.” Her next words were almost rhythmic in nature, they seemed well known and traditional, and although Adair did not recognise them, the gathered crowd did. “If you are ailing I shall not aid you, if you are bleeding I shall not stitch you, if you are poisoned I shall not cure you, this healer will not heal you. Branagh of Branwaith, you are a man without honour and you shall die a dishonourable death." Gwenyth let her words sink in, nodded to Anwynn, turned on her heel and left.

Adair quietly, approached the kneeling, scowling man, "my brother is going to live, no thanks to you, and it's thanks to pure chance, you get to keep your miserable life." He spoke softly, but the merchant could hear every word. Branagh glared up at him balefully, "but know, Branagh," Adair said quietly, "if he'd have died, I don't give a shit what the witcher Path says about not harming humans, I'd have have cut you down where you stand," he smirked, “or where you kneel.” Anwynn nodded at him, walked around Branagh, making sure to kick a bit of mud at him as she passed, linked arms with Adair and pulled him inside Gwenyth’s house. 

It took three days for Eskel to wake. Three terrifying days wherein Adair was sure he would lose another brother, but eventually much to everyone’s, including even Eskel’s, surprise, he woke. Adair had to be physically restrained by Anwynn who made good on Gwenyth's promise to sit on him, stopping him from throwing himself on top of his still-healing brother in a desperately relieved embrace. It took a further day, for Eskel to be able to stay away for any stretch of time, and two more for his wounds to be healed enough to remove the stitching. 

The scar across his chest was brutal, but the ones across his face were horrendous. Adair walked in from a morning in the market, to see Eskel, hunched over, head in his hands, and a broken hand mirror lying shattered on the floor. Eskel grave him a devastated look, and said in a broken voice, “It seems so stupid to be upset about it, but I look horrific." He ran his fingers over the jagged scars etched deeply across his face, he gave a weak self-deprecating smile. "You know when they call us mutant, or monster - well I look like a fucking monster now.” Adair didn’t know what to say, scars were a fact of life as a witcher, he had his fair share, but nothing like this. There wasn’t really anything he could say, or do. And he was just so desperately relieved that Eskel had lived, it hadn’t even occurred to him to worry about scars. So he just sat down next to his brother and pulled him into a tight embrace whilst Eskel sobbed tearlessly.

Anwynn and Gwenyth had said they could stay as long as they needed, but Eskel was keen to leave, to get back on the road, back to The Path, alone - he’d specified. He’d tried to give them half the money he’d got from Branagh, but they’d refused to take more than fifty crowns, he’d insisted Adair take two hundred for the one griffin he’d finished off. And then he was gone. Adair’s heart hurt for his brother, and his grief over his looks, but he turned to the women who were holding hands and smiling at him, and thanked them profusely. They’d saved Eskel, he had no doubt. Gwenyth looked uncomfortable, and shoved a truly ridiculous number of healing potions at him, and gruffly told him to stay out of trouble, and Anwynn grabbed him in a tight hug and asked Adair where he’d go next. “I’m going to Aedirn actually,” he told them brightly, “there’s someone I need to see in Vergen.” 

Three and a half weeks later, he was standing outside an old shack of a house, practically overflowing with plants, the smell of bread, wafting down the street. He knocked on the door apprehensively. Myra, stomped over to the door, through it open, and was about to tell whoever it was to just come in already, only to have a body slam into hers, finding herself with an armful of babbling Adair. “Thank you, Gods thank you,” he rambled at her, “you saved him, thank you Myra.” Understanding dawned, and gave a small smile, and hugged the boy tightly.


	8. Piotr's Retirement and a Stranger in the Woods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys get together to celebrate Piotr giving up The Path due to injury, are very hungover, and Geralt and Adair meet a very odd stranger in the woods.

“Wake up!” Adair moaned into the silken pillow. He flopped over in the bed and squinted up at the light, making out a blurry figure, frantically trying (and failing) to push him out of bed. “Wake up, you oaf!” The voice was shrill and not at all considerate of his horrific hangover. “You have to get out right now! My husband is coming.” Adair forced himself upright at the word ‘husband’, it was a horrible hated word. The world tilted on its axis and swam before his eyes. 

“Husband?” His mouth felt like it was half stuffed with wool, as he squinted at the admitted quite pretty blonde woman. “You definitely didn’t mention a husband last night.” Speaking was like rubbing a wire brush over his throat so Adair decided to stop. 

A third voice piped up, rumbling, masculine and still slurring, “yeah I don’t remember nuffin about no ‘usband.” 

The blond woman rolled her eyes. “If I had mentioned my husband last night you two would have been doing something _very_ wrong. You need to leave, now. Or the Count is going to have you mounted.” At Adair’s giggle that he had valiantly attempted to quash, she rolled her eyes half exasperated, half indulgent. “Mounted _on the wall,_ not in a fun way.” The word idiot was implied, although kindly not said aloud. 

Adair dragged himself upright, slung the man, groaning, over his shoulder, and slung one leg out out of the window. The blonde woman who’s name he absolutely could not remember, leaned over, kissed him on the cheek, and whispered “come visit soon,” breathily against his skin, flashing her cleavage in a very revealing lacy chemise.

Adair, carefully climbed down the side of the house, hanging on to the decorative stone ledges, the groaning man still creaking as he flopped about uselessly. Adair, used to the mistrustful looks he received as a witcher, was rather surprised to see amused grins flashing his way, and the occasional nod, followed by “feelin’ alright master witcher,” and echoing laughter. Pausing by a rainwater bucket, he gathered his long brown hair on top of his head, twisted it high into a knot, before setting the still drunk man gently on a patch of grass in the shade. Gathering the water, he quickly rinsed his head and face, knowing that if he caught up with his brothers smelling like the inside of a whorehouse, he’d never hear the end of it. A rinse would have to do. 

The man that Adair had carried, was looking rather more alive than he had thirty minutes previously, and his owlishly blinking blue eyes were watching Adair clean himself. “You are,” he slurred, “extremely attractive.” The man blurted the words out in that rushed manner drunk people so often have, he almost seemed disbelieving of his statement. And it was true, Adair, at nearly five decades of life, had finally grown into his limbs. The past two decades had filled him out, adding athletic muscle to his tall frame - he was still slim, but he no longer had that thin stretched out look that so many teenage boys have. Adair finally looked like he could possibly pass for twenty, if the person judging was looking at him in poor light. Alas however, his quest for a beard, or even just any kind of facial hair, remained unfulfilled. And, as the man had so kindly said, he was fairly attractive.

Adair gave him a once over, “not so bad yourself,” he responded with a cheerful grin and a wink. At this the man beamed, hauled himself up, swayed a little, grabbed Adair’s face roughly, pulled him in for an enthusiastic but sloppy kiss, before staggering off down one of the nearby alleys. Adair, having found that kiss thoroughly unexpected, blinked off his bemusement before going back to his washing. 

An hour later, a slightly fresher, definitely more sober Adair wandered into the large tavern he’d spent the previous night in with his brothers. As he entered, he was greeted with a rather boisterous, “Good morning master witcher! You’re looking rather hale, bearing in mind your state last night.” The buoyant voice belonged to a man Adair _absolutely did not recognise_ , but he gave him a friendly smile anyway. “Your other witcher boys are over in the corner, looking a little worse for wear,” the tavern owner continued, indicating with his head at the far corner. Adair could smell the pungent aroma of stale beer and vomit emanating from them, even from across the other side of the room. 

They’d been celebrating Piotr’s ‘retirement’ from The Path. After his fourth serious injury to his arm in less than nine years, it had been rendered almost completely useless in his latest fight, essentially leaving him one handed - Adair had only just made it in time. Piotr had decided to retire to Kaer Morhen and take over the vacant position of infirmary master, following Master Osbert’s death the previous winter. And, in celebration of one of their own actually managing to retire, rather than just die, his brothers had gotten themselves well and truly plastered in the little Kaedwenian Village near the bottom of The Blue Mountains. 

This morning, they were the very picture of regret. Lambert had his head resting on the table, and was snoring. Gardis was practically inhaling what looked like half a loaf of bread, it was almost hypnotic, was he even breathing? Eskel was propped against the wall, awake, but eyes closed, and Geralt’s resting bitch face was even more tremendously severe than usual. It looked like he was trying to set the chattering lunchtime patrons of the bar on fire, by glaring alone. Piotr was under the table, asleep on the floor. 

Bounding up to his suffering brothers, Adair said in a booming voice, “good morning boys! And what a lovely day it is!” Lambert jerked upright, swearing, Eskel opened one eye, glared at him and closed it again. Geralt stood up. “The birds are singing, the sun is shining, the mrpghph-” Geralt shoved some stale bread in Adair’s mouth, muffling the source of the piercing noise. 

“Quiet,” Geralt ground out roughly, putting his hand over Adair’s mouth. Adair, who was expecting something of the like, started humming, loudly. Lambert groaned deeply into the table, and Geralt, after glancing heavenward, and then appearing to survey his water mournfully, dumped an entire mug over Adair’s head. “You are a menace,” he informed his spluttering brother, “and I hate you.” 

Damply, and in mock outrage, Adair put his hand over his heart, and said “Nonsense, Geralt,” sternly, “I’m your favourite,” he said primly, “as your youngest and most adorable brother.”

Geralt glanced at him assessingly, and then gave the Geralt version of a mischievous grin - which was an eye crinkle, and the slight twitch of his mouth. “Lambert’s cuter,” he deadpanned. He enjoyed watching the chaos erupt as the brother in question threw himself vertical in outrage at being called cute, only to instantly and deeply regret it, before leaning over to throw up in a bucket. Adair could only open and close his mouth in betrayed offended silence as Gardis and Eskel cackled at the two of them. Piotr slept on.

They ordered lunch, and started a lively conversation, dancing between topics, and laughing at each other. They were half way through their food, when Lambert, taking a deep inhale and making eye contact with a grinning Eskel, said “Adair, you smell rather interesting.”

“And you smell like vomit.” Adair fired back at him. “And I have no idea, to what you are referring dear brother, and even if I did I would deny such an event ever happened for propriety’s sake - of course.” He bared his teeth in a painfully insincere smile.

Eskel coughed fakely into a mouthful of stew, something that sounded a lot like “slut,” and Adair kindly slammed his back repeatedly, to prevent choking of course. He then offered his brother a saccharine smile, and offered to chop his meat up for him, seeing as how he appeared to be struggling. The knife pointed directly at his brother’s crotch further backed up his willingness to follow through with the threat - or it did, until Geralt absentmindedly disarmed him and pocketed his knife. Adair pouted at his white haired brother who was resolutely unmoved. 

Lambert continued as if nothing had happened. “And the Count’s wife too? Goodness Adair, whatever were you thinking, _a married woman!_ ” Lambert’s comical voice of mock outrage, made the others laugh into their stew.

“I didn’t know she was married!” Adair protested grumpily, “I don’t deserve any of your hypocritical judgement! You've definitely slept with worse.” 

“That’s because you don’t ask, idiot.” Eskel fired back, speaking over Lamberts protests and rolling his eyes at the pair of them.

“Yeah ‘cause you always stop to ask the girls if they are married, Eskel.”

“I don’t have to,” Eskel responded calmly. “The only people who are gonna sleep with this,” he pointed at his face, “are prostitutes, and ain’t gonna have angry husbands,” he finished frankly.

It could have been the start of an uncomfortable silence, but Adair’s hangover had removed the remaining traces of his already pretty limited filter, so he fluttered his eyelashes at his brother and said liltingly, “I’d sleep with you for free,” before winking at his brother’s utterly horrified expression. Lambert howled with laughter, choked on his stew and sprayed it all over the table. 

Adair grinned self-satisfiedly, dipping his bread in the leftover liquid of his stew before Geralt quietly said, “I wouldn’t Eskel, you don’t know where he’s been,” with the tiniest smile at Adair, and to the raucous amusement of the whole table. 

Gardis, who was hunched over his food and closely resembling a particularly hairy mountain troll, grinned sharply and grunted, “course we know where ‘ees been. We can smell it on ‘im,” causing the group of men to get even rowdier.

“Fuck you all,” Adair announced, “just because I’m a charming delight, have many satisfied lovers, and you’re all jealous.” He stuck his tongue out for emphasis, but unfortunately the effect was rather lessened by Geralt yanking the back of his tunic, sending him tumbling to the floor, landing on top of a rather unfortunate Piotr. One wrestling match later, that Adair profoundly lost despite Gardis commentating like it was a professional sports event and offering unhelpful advice, they exited the tavern. 

Saying hearty goodbyes to each other, lots of reluctant hugging, the boys from Kaer Morhen parted, all except Geralt and Adair who were travelling in a similar direction along the Kaewenian roads. They had decided to stay together as far as Henselt, Adair heading towards Ard Lariegh and Geralt, on to Caingorn. On horseback, it would take a couple of days, and Adair was looking forward to spending some alone time with his quietest brother. 

***

Geralt, when people paid attention, had a very dry and sarcastic sense of humour. Many people however, utterly failed to notice this, when faced with his blank barely-changing expressions and total lack of inflection. Adair was not 'many people' and thought his brother was hilarious. He'd absolutely fallen about laughing, when the tavern had asked, "You boys witchers?" and Geralt had gravely informed him that they weren't really witchers, just a band of particularly dedicated actors, and the man had nodded and wandered off contently. It wasn't just Geralt's quiet witty remarks that he loved though, Geralt was Adair's sounding board, he was even-tempered enough to be a foil to Adair's flashes of temper and darting impulsiveness, and generally helped Adair reign in his repeated urges to tell most of the elder witchers to go fuck themselves.

"Fucking Elgar!” Adair had been ranting for some time. He was a full body ranter, arms flailing in the air, legs tense around Maggie, jerkily shifting, and rapidly changing facial expressions. “This is where those ‘witchers steal children’ rumours come from. A fucking child surprise, it's barbaric - children are not bartering chips!” Geralt knew he had to wait for Adair to burn it out of his system before interjecting. “This kid could have been anything, now _even if he survives_ he'll have to be a witcher."

"I was a child surprise," Geralt said quietly. "And I don't mind being a witcher."

This caused Adair to pause, but he continued. "That is great for you Geralt, but this kid had no fucking choice, they're being forced to leave their family, probably all of which will hate us forever by the way, and will probably tell everyone about how the witchers stole their children."

"Maybe. Maybe not." 

Adair sighed. "Chances are, he's not even gonna survive the fucking trials. It's different when kids are abandoned to us, or even when they're slaves like I was. It's still not okay, but it's more acceptable. It's different when they have a family that might love them and we take that away from them, for good."

Geralt thought this over for a moment. Adair liked that about his brother, he could be quick when he wanted to be, but he knew this was important to Adair, so he carefully considered what his younger brother had said."I think it's complicated," Geralt said finally. Adair rolled his eyes at the non-answer and pressed his brother for more details. "Look at Lambert. He hates what his father did, but he also got a better family, better education, a better chance with us than he ever would have in that little town in Aedirn." Adair admitted some grudging truth in Geralt's words. "With me," Geralt pressed on, "I was an unwanted bastard, I was starved and probably wouldn't have survived to see my tenth year. Being a witcher probably saved us both."

"Yeah but," Adair interrupted, "you're speaking as someone who survived all the trials, what if you hadn't? What if rather than you, we were talking about Gaventh, he was a child surprise as well, you know."

Geralt was silent for a full three minutes, while he turned that over in his head. Adair did have a point. "I think," he said finally, "if you told me as a child that I could risk dying, which was highly likely anyway, just for education, food and a family that wanted me - I'd have taken that risk." He looked off into the distance whilst speaking, staring at some invisible mark on the horizon, like it contained all the meaning in the world. "But Adair we save people, we witchers save a huge number of lives, probably each witcher saves hundreds every year. For the ability to do that, I'd take many more dangerous trials, with much higher chance of death." Geralt shrugged like he hadn't just said something deeply profound, and Adair tried to parse out his thoughts on the matter.

"I think for me," Adair said eventually, "it comes down to the act of choice. The kids don't choose this, not all of them, and maybe most would," he allowed, thinking hard, "maybe if you asked each class if they wanted to go through with it before the trials, maybe most would take them anyway, but the boys don't get asked. It gets done to them, whether or not they want it Geralt, and I can't reconcile that. And the number in which they die is… well it’s horrific."

Geralt nodded at his brother's words, not denying them. It was a complex issue, and they both had entirely different perspectives on the matter. Turning the conversation over to Piotr and his latest injury Geralt asked Adair for the full story.

"...so then I burst through the hedge just as the hag was about to poison him again, and managed to send one of my throwing knives at her tongue," he paused pensively, "got there just in time Geralt, it was close. _Really_ close."

Geralt "hmm'ed" thoughtfully, before side-eyeing his brother and observing, "that's six times across two decades you've arrived just in the nick of time and saved one of us. You’re making a habit of it."

Adair panicked. He tried, and failed, not to look horribly guilty, "what a tremendous coincidence," he brightly said, "how lucky you are-"

"Adair." Geralt cut him off, and rolled his eyes, "I know you have some kind of magical something helping you."

Adair's voice went high and squeaky, "I- Geralt! Magic? I um- er..." He trailed off into silence, flailing under the force of Geralt's faintly amused expression.

"I don't care what it is," Geralt said abruptly, then eyed his brother, "or who." Adair tried not to wince, he could lie to anyone and everyone, become numerous different characters at the drop of a hat, tell any number of random strangers obviously made up tales and have them believe every word, but he couldn't mislead his brothers for a second. “It’s obvious we have something helping us, we’re the only year group in Wolf history to all survive this long.” Geralt paused, "And I'm fucking grateful, just. Tell me you didn't do something stupid."

"What?" Adair asked absolutely not understanding what Geralt meant.

"Tell me," Geralt said slowly and clearly, "that whatever you are using, didn’t cost you anything too... permanent."

Adair smirked. "What? You mean I shouldn't have sold my dick to that sorceress? Now you tell me Geralt." Geralt shoved Adair so hard he nearly fell off Maggie. "Assault!" he shrieked, before throwing a mildly stale piece of bread at his brother, and pushing his girl into a full gallop, knowing she could outpace Roach over shorter distances.

Messing about as they were, they didn't see the fallen carriage until they were almost upon it. Glancing at Geralt uneasily, Adair dismounted and drew his silver sword, straining his eyes and listening intently. Sounds of a fearsome battle were coming from about fifty yards away, just into the trees.

Smoke was pouring through the tightly-woven tree trunks, billowing chaotically and issuing from something absolutely giant. It gave a deafening howl. A woman, no - a sorceress, was frantically throwing handfuls of coloured light at the fiery creature but they had minimal effect. "That's a fire elemental," Adair breathed, dumfounded, he nodded once at Geralt before leaping into the fray.

Between their two silver swords, copious use of Axii and Quen, and one very well-timed demitrium bomb, they had beaten the truly giant elemental into submission in a matter of minutes. They both had numerous scrapes and burns by the time the beast was dead, but they were both fine, and the sorceress was alive, though a little battered. 

Geralt strode over to the fallen woman, and offered her his arm, as he pulled her up, her glamour dispelled, revealing pointed elven ears. Self-consciously, with darting eyes, she said a few words in Elvish, and reapplied the glamour, appearing human once more. Then taking in the sight of the elemental and her two rescuers her eyes widened and she went very pallid.

“Are you alright Madam Sorceress?” Adair asked as politely as he could, she looked very pale. Trying to be reassuring he said, “it’s dead, you’re safe now.” She continued looking at the pair of them, absolutely flabbergasted. She was wearing multiple bags, not very sturdy looking, but leaking magic in rolling waves that Adair could feel. She looked distinctly harried, almost like she expected them to turn their swords on her next.

“I- yes. Yes I’m unharmed,” she finally answered Adair’s question, “Master… Witcher? You’re a witcher, yes?” They both nodded while she fiddled with the straps of one of her many bags, both looking muddled at the very odd question.

Falling back on his manners to guide him through this distinctly strange conversation, Adair introduced them both. “Yes I am Adair aep Riedbrune, and this is Geralt of Rivia, we’re of the wolf school,” he added helpfully.

This did not seem to aid the sorceress's confusion. “But why would you aid _me_?” She asked incredulously. “I’m a mage, a sorceress of- of Tiall Dirn?” This all clearly meant something highly significant to her, but neither Adair nor Geralt knew what she was talking about.

“You were in trouble,” Geralt stated simply. “We are witchers.” And for him it really was that simple. Geralt truly believed in the cause, to save people and kill monsters, because it was the right thing to do. His conviction and sincerity was clear and obvious. 

“But don’t you mind?” The woman was absolutely flabbergasted. “I’m a sorceress,” she repeated like they might have forgotten that fact, “don’t you witchers hate us all?”

“No?” Adair questioned, brow furrowed, “Ma’am, off the top of my head I can name eight witchers that owe their lives to mages. Probably, all of us will at some point. Why on earth would we hate you?” It was like they were having two different conversations. All three of them were totally bewildered, and the communication wasn’t really solving the issue. The sorceress took a deep breath, clearly thinking hard, and trying to align this encounter with her world views and finding them entirely contradictory. 

“I- yes. Well. Good point.” She still peered at them, concernedly. “You really have no idea what I’m referring to, do you?” Adair looked at Geralt who shrugged. He shook his head at the woman. “Look,” she said, “I’m getting out of Kaedwen, and I suggest you do the same. It’s not safe, not for me," she indicated at her ears, "and certainly not for you. There are some mages gathering in Edvass’s court, and they are _really_ not fond of witchers... or any nonhumans.” She said the last bit so emphatically, that her meaning could not be mistaken. They were a threat.

Geralt quietly explained that he was going to Caingorn anyway, and wouldn’t be in danger, but Adair piped up, “Madam Sorceress, if they have such a problem with witchers, and nonhumans, I should to investigate Edvass and let the others know... my family are all witchers. We need to know what’s going on.”

“They’ll kill you,” she responded flatly. She didn’t even need to think about it. “They’ll kill you where you stand if you turn up looking like that,” Then she paused, almost like she was suddenly captivated by an idea. Thinking for a second, and muttering to herself, she rummaged in her waistbag. She pulled out a stone pendant, a bottle of something and a knife. “I don’t have any coin to spare, witchers of the wolf school, so take this as payment instead, and when they ask, tell them Enid an Gleanna sent you their way.” She pricked her third finger, and bled on the center of the pendant, before pouring the phial of whatever it was over the stone carving. With a few muttered Elvish words, she handed it to Adair who threaded it onto his medallion chain, like she indicated.

Without warning, a hazy glamour washed over Adair. His few obvious monster scars shivered and faded, his eyes blended into a light hazel, his pupils perfectly circular, his teeth of a normal human length. He looked like himself, just the human version of himself. “They’ll sense the magic, but will know it’s mine, just tell them you’ve got a nasty scar you’re hiding.” Enid gazed at him, firmly. “Don’t stay long," she commanded him. "it’s not safe, but this should work” she bit her lip. “And, thank you,” gesturing to the carcass of the elemental. 

She walked back to the road, and with a wave of her hand, moved the carriage out of the way, summoned her bags, and opened a portal. Stepping through it, she disappeared, giving them one last searching look.

“Are you sure?” Geralt turned to him and asked seriously. “This sounds extremely dangerous.” 

Adair nodded. “Yeah, it really does. That's why I need to investigate.” He’d never heard of Tiall Dirn, and the thought of there being multiple mages, powerful magic users, with some grudge against witchers, well, it was deeply unsettling. And the thought of them in Edvass, so close to Kaer Morhen, was downright worrying. With his newfound disguise, Adair resolved to investigate and bring his findings back to the elders - they’d hopefully know what to do. Steeling himself, he made rendezvous plans with Geralt, in the woods of Aeod Guina four days hence - he’d left his silver sword, potions and anything obviously witchery with his brother, taking his steel sword, light leather armour and multitude of throwing knives, and concealed weapons. It made sense to take precautions, but hopefully these mages would be nothing to worry about.


	9. The Court of Edvass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adair goes to the court of Edvass, learns a lot, and returns to Kaer Morhen with dire warnings.

The court was a total shitshow. It seemed like all the dregs of society, the worst and most bloated aristocratic parasites, the pompous self-important assholes, the rich spoilt brats, and the conniving, ambitious social climbers had all gathered in one festering cesspool of twisted grasping attempts at power. 

Adair had learned a lot. 

The virulent hatred of nonhumans was utterly staggering, almost mystifying in its viciousness. Enid’s name had got him escorted through the stone city, and right into the front gates of a castle. Adair was mystified - last time he’d passed through Edvass two decades previous, it was sizable sure, but there was no castle. It appeared to have just sprung up out of the ground, fully formed. When he'd introduced himself with a flirty smile and a sweeping bow to the Edvass court, explained he was a travelling mercenary en route to a job, he was welcomed with open arms. They were apparently looking for mercenaries, which was concerning. When he regretfully informed them he'd accepted a contract elsewhere but had been recommended to stop here by Enid, the tone of the conversation changed. 

Lord Haldo had issued a deeply put-upon sigh and had said insincerely, "Dear Enid. So skilled, such a shame about her..." He leaned forward and whispered in a carrying tone, " _heritage_ ," gesturing to his ears. 

Adair feigned incomprehension with a polite expression, and the old, portly lord explained. "Ah. You didn't know. She's got elf blood you see, she hides it well, but you know what those beasts are like, can't hide it forever." Then jovially he straightened up and raised his voice. "No no my boy, we found her out in the end." Adair mentally noted his frustration at the foolish prejudice of the lord’s words, but he manfully swallowed it down and ignored it. He suspected he'd be doing a lot of that in the coming day or two, he kept his handsome features painted in a politely interested expression. 

Haldo introduced him to a number of other guests, and the host of Edvass, one Count Mihrla. The count was an elderly man who had clearly been rather attractive in his heyday. He wore his finery consciously, like he was half expecting someone to accuse him of stealing it, and he was readying himself to kick them. He had a mean expression that sat beneath slicked-back white hair, and looked thoroughly disinterested in Adair as he introduced himself. His son on the other hand looked very interested. Very interested indeed. Adair sent him a burning look as he ran his eyes over the attractive man's figure. 

When the court dismissed him after offering him use of a room in the castle, Adair had wandered around Edvass. Adair was no mage, and honestly his sign casting was fairly shoddy, but even he could clearly identify the very obvious and widespread use of magic. The castle was the most obvious. The Count could not have built a castle in two decades, not without copious use of magic. He would guess at least five, maybe as many as ten mages had settled here and were practically holding the small city together. As he walked through the streets it became even more obvious. Buildings that should be impossible, defied gravity, held together by some unseen manipulation of chaos. Gardens filled with flowers that should not be growing here, blossomed. And perhaps more overtly, adverts for potions, magical solutions filled the walls and littered the notice boards. 

But more worryingly, as he wandered in and out of the town taverns, he overheard snatches of conversation. "Those fucking pointy eared beasts." And "dwarves are all the same." "Animals the lot of them." Round and round, the vicious, anti-nonhuman sentiment seemed to swell about him. It was awful, and compounded by the very obvious, very prevalent use of magic, it was very concerning. But still not an outright threat. The rise of anti-nonhuman sentiment in Kaedwen was important, it was something to seriously take note of, and he’d let the elders know he supposed, but he couldn’t get the conversation with Enid out of his head. She’d been convinced of the hatred witchers had for mages, and she was certain he’d be killed just for stepping foot inside Edvass. He resolved to investigate further. 

Half suspecting, half hoping that Enid was being overly dramatic, he continued to survey the people around him, listening to their conversations as he ambled past. Listening intently, he was entirely distracted and found himself lightly bumping into someone. Pasting on a friendly expression, he turned to apologise, only to find himself face to face with the Count's son. "Liall of Mihrla," he introduced himself, and Adair flicked his eyes over the noble’s pretty face, before offering him a lazy, flirty smile. 

A few bottles of Everluce later, and Adair found himself doodling abstract shapes with his fingers on Liall's bare skin. 

Adair grinned over at him, "I'm so glad I stopped by Edvass, it certainly is _stunning_ ," he leered at Liall, as he pressed kisses into his neck.

"It is.” Liall said emphatically, before going into quite an endearing rant about all his favourite places, and the sights that Adair should try to see before he left. He finished his speech with a slightly wistful expression, and heaved a sigh. “Shame about the neighbours though," Liall shook his head, almost regretfully.

"Hmm?” Adair questioned. “The villages all seemed well enough when I was passing through."

"You probably didn't see all of them," Liall said darkly. And then with a viciousness that completely shocked Adair, he spat, "hiding in their fucking mountains, plotting against us all." Liall said it so firmly, like it was just an accepted fact, something everyone knew. 

Adair's hand stilled, and infusing his voice with as much disbelief as he could, he asked, "you don't mean the witchers do you?"

"Of course I mean those fucking mutant freaks." Liall laughed at him, tone light. Adair felt himself go cold all over and clamped tightly down on his expressions. Giving nothing away and sitting up, he raised a questioning eyebrow. "The mages are handling it," Liall told him conspiratorially, leaning over and kissing Adair's shoulder, "they'll do a bit of spring cleaning," he laughed again at this and Adair tried not to show how ill he felt, "then Edvass really will be the jewel of the north," Liall finished, smiled happily at Adair as he leant against the headboard of the bed and handed over Adair’s shirt.

Steeling himself internally, Adair pulled away, offered another flirty smile, pulled his shirt over his head before leaning down and pressing a gentle kiss to Liall's mouth. "I'll have to come back and visit," he promised. Liall flopped back down on his bed and offered Adair a lazy wave.

Returning to his rooms Adair lay awake in the dark, brain ticking away. He still didn't know who these mages were or what they were planning, but they were definitely planning something. The knowledge that multiple mages were planning, by the sounds of it, an assault on Kaer Morhen seemed to be ticking under his skin like a heartbeat, pumping adrenaline through his body, and sharpening his senses. His brain racing, he lay awake until the first light of dawn was breaking through his open window. 

Pulling himself upright, and dressing in his leathers, he wandered down the ornately decorated corridor, towards where he could smell foods being dished up. Passing through the corridor, he listened carefully, hoping that his mutated hearing might pick up something useful said aloud, in the deceptive appearance of privacy afforded by the closed doors. Other than several cases of adultery and one small theft, he'd heard nothing of interest, until he passed the second-to-last door. Something was being said in Elvish, and it had the ringing timbre of magic. There were voices speaking in low tones. Two of them, two men. 

"Is it ready?" The first voice was high, reedy and demanding.

"Almost." The second was deep, and coloured with irritation.

Well hurry up," the reedy voice snapped. Adair listening intently but a clanging sound from the next room obscured the next few seconds, "...Strike when they're vulnerable."

"How in Tissaia's name do you know that?" An amused female voice spoke up, sounding curious. 

"Tissaia's name?” The reedy voice laughed nastily. “Don't make me laugh. Small-minded fool that she is. I know that because I caught one.” He sounded inordinately proud of himself, and Adair felt sick at his next words, “A Witcher."

"You didn't." The deep voice sounded impressed, and the woman laughed. 

"I did. An old one as well, some physician or something, collecting supplies in that awful village at the bottom of The Blue Mountains last winter." Adair couldn't believe it, it couldn't be true, the only witcher physician he knew was Osbert. But thinking to himself he realised, Osbert _had_ died last winter

"I didn't know _they_ could get old," the deep male voice observed clinically.

"It takes some doing, you wouldn't believe some of the things the old mutant had learned, he was eleven centuries old you know." It was Osbert, fuck. Adair leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. Osbert was a tough old goat of a man, but he’d been sad to hear of his death. They’d thought he’d caught something contagious at the village, he’d been susceptible to illness because of an alchemical accident a few decades prior. 

"That was risky, idiot." The woman sounded fond. 

"Oh pish. I broke his mind and cursed his lungs to ensure a quick death. They didn’t notice a thing." And he was right, the witchers didn’t, just merrily replaced Osbert with Piotr, and cracked on, easily accepting the death of one of their members, because what witcher wasn’t used to death? 

At this last awful sentence, the conversation turned over to discussing some recent gossip, someone had slept with someone else and people were scandalised or something. Adair didn’t listen, and didn’t care to hear.

Blankly, Adair made his way into the breakfast room. He absently collected some food, packed up his gear, took his leave of the lords and The Count, promised Liall another visit, and found Maggie in the stables, saddled her and readied to leave - operating completely out of habit, not really paying attention to what he was doing. 

He was in shock. Osbert. They'd killed Osbert. What the fuck? He'd always imagined the old man was unkillable. And they were planning something, they had hinted that they knew the vulnerabilities of the keep, and they probably did if they had access to Osbert's knowledge. From the sounds of the conversation, they were amassing resources. Adair was going to have to go to Kaer Morhen. For the first time since he'd graduated, he was going to have to return to the keep.

He found Geralt at the rendezvous point a whole day early. Geralt gave him a quick once over and told him bluntly, "you look awful," before forcing some food into Adair's hands. Geralt ordered him to meditate, and then began pottering around the temporary campsite.

When Adair came to, his brother was watching him. "I have to back Geralt," he croaked. "I have to go back to Kaer Morhen." Geralt, smelling his brother's distress, gave him a sort of one armed hug. It was awkward and stilted, but it was very sweet. 

"Want me to come?" Geralt, from his hesitation, obviously did not want to come. It was considerate to offer, but Adair knew Geralt had just as many complex feelings regarding Kaer Morhen as he did. Then Adair remembered what the mages had said.

"No!" he blurted out, suddenly looking alarmed. "Geralt, promise me, promise me right now you wont go to Kaer Morhen until we definitely know it's safe, and tell the others if you see them." 

Geralt frowned at his younger brother. Worry was pouring off Adair in waves, and he didn't like it. But Adair would not be swayed, "fine," he said curtly with a quick nod. 

Adair gathered up his equipment, potions and silver sword he'd left with Geralt for safe keeping, saddled up Maggie, and turned to his brother. Knowing Geralt would be uncomfortable if he dragged it out, he pulled him into a quick embrace, before releasing him. "Stay safe Geralt," Adair ordered him seriously, as he pulled himself up onto Maggie's saddle.

And then Adair was gone. Riding hard, he passed through the villages quickly, within days finding himself at the bottom of The Blue Mountains. It took a few more days to ascend the rocky path, nicknamed The Killer in Adair's day, and by the third morning he was leading Maggie rather than riding her. 

Near the afternoon of day four, Adair rounded a jagged corner, and found himself face to face with the keep. Austere and imposing, it rose up against the clouds, cutting away pieces the sky with its gargantuan turrets and solid walls. The jagged lines and harsh darkness of the castle felt so contrary to the warm sun, still bright even this high in the mountains. It looked solid, impenetrable, safe, and despite his numerous issues with the Witcher order, Adair hoped it would remain so.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adair returns to Kaer Morhen with dire warnings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for mentions of death, mentions of canonical human experimentation, discussion of witcher trials.

The keep was alive with the sounds of swords clashing, bellowing instructions, and the shouting and laughing of enthusiastic children battering the shit out of each other. It made Adair nauseous. Pensively, he strode through the outer wall, through the courtyard, past the stables and headed towards the inner keep.

"Adair?” Adair recognised that voice immediately. He knew the tones and cadence inside and out, despite not hearing it for nearly three decades. It was Vesemir. And this was awkward. “What are you doing-” Vesemir’s stunned incredulity at seeing Adair was blindingly clear on his face, but he cut himself off. He gave the younger man a hopeful tentative smile, “it's- it's good to see you lad."

Adair, biting back on the instinctive bitter response that sprung to his lips, gave himself a mental shake. Despite everything, he did care for Vesemir, and he knew the old man's worries about him were only exacerbated by his conspicuous absence. He allowed the man to see a small upward twitch of his lips, before replying simply, "it's good to see you too Vesemir."

Vesemir, who’d been running his eyes over the young witcher, clearly examining him for injury and hurt, couldn't help but notice the great thick ropey scars clawing up Adair’s right forearm - they were healed, but only just. Almost as though he were unable to stop himself, Vesemir observed, "those are some nasty scars boy."

Adair knew it would be easy to react defensively, to read into that statement that Vesemir thought he was incapable or weak. He knew Lambert would have responded with biting wit and bitter words, but he allowed himself to give a self deprecating smile. "Clan of bruxae, caught me unawares." And wasn’t that the understatement of the century. If he had been seconds later in responding, or if he’d had even one less silver throwing knife, he wouldn’t have survived the confrontation.

"Tsh.” Vesemir gave him a relieved grin, clearly nervous about how the conversation would go. “The basics are important lad,” He shook his head, falling back into his well-used role as teacher and instructor. “you have to-"

"Vesemir, I'd love to catch up with you later,” and Adair was shocked to realise he really, genuinely meant it, “and I'll even let you watch my form and correct all the mistakes like I know you're dying to,” he flashed a grin at his mentor’s startled guilty expression. It was staggering how someone of Vesemir’s advanced age could so much resemble a naughty child caught stealing, “but it will have to be later. I've got news,” Adair grimaced, “urgent news, for the elders."

Vesemir eyed him carefully, examining the boy he’d helped raise so many years previously. "It's bad, isn't it," he observed. And although he needed no confirmation for his definite statement, the truth that he’d read in Adair’s face so clearly, Adair nodded. 

"There's a group of mages gathered at Edvass.” Vesemir took in a sharp breath at Adair’s words, it wasn't quite a gasp, but it was close. “I'd guess between five to ten, although I only heard three of them,” Adair paused before saying ominously, “and I _know_ they're planning something,” he eyed his old sword master, before glancing over to the courtyard where the children were still playing at death with their blunted weapons, “it’s big. It’s possibly an assault on Kaer Morhen."

"Fuck." Vesemir’s cursing was both blunt and emphatic. 

"Yeah. And there's something else. It's-," Adair bit his lip, he didn't really know how to phrase it. "It's Osbert. About how he died.” Vesemir’s eyes snapped to his, clearly not expecting this conversational twist. “One of the mages caught him, read his mind and cursed his lungs. That's how he died." Vesemir closed his eyes, his scent spiking sharply with grief. He’d known Osbert for centuries.

Vesemir pushed himself up from the wall he’d been leaning on, and surveyed the younger man carefully. "And you are sure this is true?" he demanded. Adair nodded. "Tell me everything," Vesemir commanded. And Adair did. He started with encountering Enid, explained his surveillance of Edvass, and witnessing the copious magic and staggering prejudice against non humans. He stuttered through his encounter with Liall, thankful for his inability to blush, having to explain his tryst to a man who was basically his parent. And finally, he explained the awful conversation that had him fleeing back to Kaer Morhen for the first time in decades.

They sat in silence for a while before Vesemir straightened up, his posture changing from concerned and gently parental to something significantly more worthy of one of the seven master witchers of Kaer Morhen. He appeared to command an aura of power as he stated, "I'll call a council meeting this evening," before gruffly adding, "you might be asked to speak at it - _be polite_.” The last two words brought an incriminating grin to Adair’s face as he remembered the last time he was at a council meeting, and had called them all child-murdering monsters and demons of Lilith. Vesemir, upon noticing his ward’s expression, rolled his eyes. Then he added, “Piotr's here, in the infirmary. He'd uh... he'd appreciate the company."

Adair, leaping at the opportunity to see his brother, sprang to his feet, offered a quick garbled goodbye to Vesemir, before half-jogging down to the infirmary. As he got closer, he could hear his brother speaking irritatedly, it was a tone of voice that Adair knew well. "Klaus. Again?" Piotr sounded exasperated. "It's like you're trying to get injured. No! You sit there and don't move," his voice went slightly dangerous. "I _said_ don't move or you'll be dicing drowner brains for my salves." 

At that clearly very effective threat, there was a mumbled “yes, Master Piotr” and the sound of bustling around as his brother rummaged for something. Adair grinned in the empty stone corridor, his brother was good at this. He shouldn't be surprised he supposed. It was easy to dismiss his brother, but he'd spent a good few years limiting the combined chaos of five other juvenile witchers, of course he'd be a decent child wrangler. And Adair would bet good money that he'd be an exceptional teacher as well. Piotr had always been fairly scholarly, often joining Adair in his quests for knowledge through the Witcher library, but he was the sort who was content to sit and read for hours, whereas Adair would read something and then immediately want to go outside and do the thing he'd just read about.

Piotr always had been the most patient of all of them, if anyone was predisposed to work with children, it was him. It certainly wasn't Lambert or Gardis, both of whom were quick tempered bastards and often regarded children as loud chaotic annoyances. Eskel hilariously, was somewhat terrified of small children. Once he'd had to hold some woman's infant whilst Adair patched her up, it looked tiny in his giant arms, and Eskel, who had once faced down four griffins without flinching, looked absolutely petrified. It was amazing. Geralt and Adair were both surprisingly okay with kids, but Geralt found them tiring after a while, and Adair could entertain them for small stretches of time, but would soon get bored. Of the six of them, Piotr was the best choice for a teaching position, and Adair was thrilled for him.

Deciding to make an entrance, Adair flung open the door to the infirmary with a flourish and a cry of "brother dearest! Have you missed me?"

Piotr, thoroughly used to his younger brother's antics, didn't even look at him, just snorted and continued to bandage the now grinning little boy with wild ginger hair. "Adair, I only saw you a month ago,” Piotr drily remarked, “if anything I'm suffering a lack of you."

Adair, hand on heart, pretended to swoon, "cruel brother, most cruel. You wound me," he wailed, and then making eye contact with the grinning ginger boy, Klaus, he beseeched, "look at this, he bullies me!” gesturing wildly at Piotrs unimpressed face, “are you also a victim of The Tyrant?"

Piotr, rolling his eyes and adjusting his spectacles with the stump of his left arm said, "you'll both be my victims in a minute of you don't be quiet." Adair mimed sewing his lips shut, and Klaus giggled even more. Finally, Piotr tied off the bandage and sent the boy on his way. "Don't get any more swords stuck in you!" He called after the boy as he darted out the room, laughing.

Piotr's pleasant expression slipped off his face, and he took his spectacles off his nose and rested them on his forehead. "Adair," he stated, eyeing his brother, voice heavy with concern and suspicion, "why have you come here?" Piotr half looked like he wanted to cross the room and check his brother’s temperature. Adair was the only one of them that hadn’t ever returned to the Kaer, Piotr knew exactly what Adair thought about the place, and so it was incredibly jarring to see him there. Examining his younger brother closely, Piotr could see exhaustion and stress worn deep into the lines of Adair’s ageless face. 

Weakly Adair offered, "would you believe me if I said it was to visit my brother in his retirement?" The grin that followed was affected and not in the least convincing.

Piotr snorted. "No," he said bluntly.

"Yeah... thought not.” Adair sighed, sometimes having brothers that knew you incredibly well was a pain in the ass. “It's probably not that serious, but…” he paused, “Me and Geralt came across a plot against some witchers, I think they meantoattackkaermorhen." The last sentence was incredibly rushed like Adair seemed to think if he said it quickly Piotr might not worry about it. 

Whatever Piotr had been expecting, this was not it. "What?" he was flabbergasted. "But, why? How would they even attack the castle? It's a castle filled with warriors, they must be mad.” He shock his head, utterly astounded, then gathering himself, he pressed for information. “Who's planning this?"

"There's a group of mages gathering at Edvass,” Adair hesitated before adding, “they killed Osbert."

"Well that solves that mystery." At Adair's questioning look, Piotr explained grimly, "We all knew he didn't die of anything natural, but we kept it quiet. He kept notes on his symptoms towards the end and concluded it was magic in origin." Piotr pointed to a truly horrendous pile of journals and notes and papers stacked haphazardly in one corner of the infirmary. It looked as though the filing system was ‘just chuck it and hope nothing falls’. 

"Cursed his lungs, they said.” Adair told his brother quietly, “Anyway,” he spoke as cheerfully as he could manage, “I've told the elders, so whatever happens next is up to them I suppose. What have you been doing this past month Pete?"

Piotr looked pleased to be asked, and ignored the clumsy subject change. "Well I've been building up my healing stock, and I've been reading old Osbert's medicine journals.” The way he said medicine journals was probably the same way thieves spoke about unguarded treasure. “Adair there's so much to learn. He had centuries to accumulate knowledge on healing. It's endlessly fascinating." Piotr's eyes were shining with passion. 

Adair smiled at his brother's obvious enthusiasm. "Tell me everything you've learnt," he requested, and at that Piotr was off. The lecture covered everything from potions to salves, to bone setting techniques in the eighth century. The sheer volume of information Piotr had acquired in just a month’s time was simply staggering, and Adair had honestly expected nothing less of his studious brother.

By the time they were called to dinner Adair had three new healing potion recipes, a more efficient wound sealant and a recipe that simulated the effects black blood for a shorter period of time, but had significantly less toxicity and should barely affect the consumer (as long as they were a Witcher of course - it was still a death sentence for regular humans). 

Joining the melee that was dinner times at Kaer Morhen, Adair found himself gravitating away from the traditional top table, the place for the wandering witchers of other schools, or recuperating wolves, and towards the oldest table of Witcher initiates. Fighting down the lump in his throat as he noticed their youth, and still currently human features, he plonked himself down dramatically and grinned at the completely taken-aback dumfounded expressions. Playing innocently with his chicken thigh, he asked in a lilting questioning tone, “anyone wanna hear what a Endrega’s insides look like?” The blaringly loud chorus of affirmative clamouring voices made him full-belly laugh, and he started spinning a largely dramatised recounting of what was, upon reflection, a fairly dull encounter on his way up the mountain pass to Kaer Morhen. Clearly hearing his dramatics from across the room, Master Elgar shot him a fairly irritated look, and Vesemir just looked torn between being exasperated and fond. It was a look Adair was intimately familiar with, and caused twinges of nostalgia. 

“...and then, the final cockatrice reared up, and was about to take my head off, and Gardis - he’s my older brother - stormed in, took its head off with one slice. Now I’m out of my mind on Lamia venom, so I turn to him, give him the stupidest grin I could manage and said ‘my hero’ swooning like a maiden, I thought he was gonna drop me back off the cliff!”

“Do witchers all help each other, out when they’re out on the path?” A voice piped up by Adair’s left, interrupting the cloud of giggling boys. It was ginger Klaus from earlier. 

Adair looked at Klaus seriously. “No one else will help you kid. You can’t rely on the humans - your brothers might irritate the shit outta you but they’ve got your back, and you have to have theirs.” Adair looked at the laughing eager faces around him, he could use this as an opportunity to teach the kids some lessons, but he knew they’d likely been in lessons all day. “Anyone want to hear about the time me and your Master Piotr fought, and lost, against a succubus?” 

After dinner was over, Adair waved the boys a cheerful goodbye and drifted over to where Piotr was sitting with a grumpy expression on his face. “Pleased with yourself are you?” Piotr asked snidely. Adair grinned cheekily at his brother and nodded affirmative. Piotr rolled his eyes and whined, “fucks sake Adair, did you have to tell the kids about the succubus?” At his brothers choking laughter, Piotr muttered, “It’s hard enough to teach the little shits anyway, now every kid in the keep will know that story by tomorrow morning.” Piotr groaned at the thought. 

Adair felt the strain of his smile slip, “I couldn’t help it, alright? I just wanted to make them laugh Pete. Look at them, they’re what, twelve?” Piotr nodded. “It’s a Harvest Moon in just under a week’s time. They’ve got five nights before the Grasses.” At Piotr’s dawning realisation, Adair heaved a heavy sigh. “I just wanted them to... you know, have something happy.” Piotr gave his younger brother a sad smile, and a shoulder bump, understanding him completely. They sat in sat contemplative silence for a few minutes, both remembering their trials. 

Vesemir cleared his throat loudly from behind them, interrupting their reminiscing. When they looked up, he directed a significant look at the room behind him. The meeting was starting. 

There were fifteen witchers gathered in total, seven of which were the master witchers of Kaer Morhen. Elgar, easily the eldest, sat at the head of the table, grumpy expression on his heavily lined faces as he surveyed the gathered men. The last to sit was Sorel, head of witcher training at Kaer Morhen, and a giant of a man. Upon seeing Adair, he gave a cheerful grin at the boy who had undoubtedly been one of his worst and most unpredictable students. He gave Adair a hefty slap on the back that sent him almost staggering into his chair, Piotr who ducked Sorel’s enthusiastic greeting with a wave, stifled his laughter at his brother who was still rubbing his arm at Sorel’s painful welcome.

Elgar, ignoring the quiet greetings being issued around him as he had no time for such niceties, starting speaking in his carrying toneless voice. “For those of you who haven’t heard, we now have evidence to suggest that Osbert’s death was not natural”

Master Varin - a northern witcher with a beard heavily streaked with grey, a scar blinding his left eye snorted and in a voice that sounded like he’d been gargling glass - barked, “tell me you didn’t call us here to tell us something we all know.” 

Elgar continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “Thanks to young Adair aep Riedbrune’s efforts we now know that it was a group of mages gathered at the court of Edvass, who all seem to have some concerning nonhuman prejudice and anti-witcher sentiment.” That was news to the assembled witchers, discontented mutterings sprang up, and old Klef who was at least twice Vesemir’s age and almost entirely deaf, loudly asked the person sitting next to him about the dangerous sediment and how he knew a brilliant potion for dissolving rock. Elgar spoke over him, projecting his voice even louder. “The question is, how to proceed?”

Varin spoke up immediately, “It’s obvious. We go to Edvass and kill them all.” He spoke in a blank factual tone, as though he couldn’t even conceive a different option. There were a few affirmative grunts, but not many.

“No, you murderous cad!” Sorel yelled, completely aghast at his colleague's calm intent to slaughter a whole court of people. “We _must_ use observation, as Riedbrune did. We must gather information and observe the situation. They won’t all be guilty, and we can’t condemn innocent people.”

Lantamir’s reedy voice interjected,“witchers do not get involved in politics, this is politics and therefore, not our area,” he finished his statement primly, and glanced about the room with a self-satisfied expression. Thankfully, he was completely ignored. 

Varin was incensed. “They killed Osbert! This isn’t politics, it’s survival!” He bared his teeth threateningly, “What’s to say they won’t kill more of us? If they intend us harm - we should strike preemptively. If you _delicate scholars_ don’t want to get your hands dirty, I'm more than happy to.” Varin spat the word scholar like it was offensive to him.

Master Barmin, Kaer Morhen’s master alchemist, and general asshole, sniped back at Varin, “As witchers, we accept that death is inevitable, it is not worth compromising our century old code for the death of a single person.”

Piotr, who’d been silent through most of the discussion, thoughtfully interjected, “It sounds like they were planning on bringing the fight to us. It might be worth considering that we may not have a choice about engaging with them.” The gathered elder witchers considered his words. 

Elgar spoke up. “We have been attacked many times before, none have breached our walls, however, none have had magical firepower to the extent the Edvass court potentially possess." He summarised the situation well, everyone was listening. "It is a complex issue. Osbert knew many of our vulnerabilities, and we have no way of knowing how many were revealed. Swift action could prevent catastrophe, but also may undermine the very code by which we live by. We are _witchers_. It is not our place to take revenge, however much we may wish it,” he gently added, looking at Varin’s scowling features. There was murmuring grudging agreement although Varin was conspicuously silent. 

Sorel, after a long moment suggested, “how about this: we patch up the western wall tomorrow, and get the initiates to sort out the Northgale tunnel. They’re the most glaring vulnerabilities in The Kaer. We also establish a semi-permanent surveillance on the court of Edvass. We instruct every witcher that passes through Kaer to keep an eye on the rising non-human persecution, and listen out for any rumours, and,” he gestured at Adair, “we have young Riedbrune go back every few months to check in and monitor the political landscape.” 

There were murmurings of agreement. Vesemir, who’d been silent till then, gruffly added, “I’ll start stockpiling dimeritium, just in case.” 

At the positive reception this plan had, the conversation turned to the coming Trial of the Grasses. Barmin started enthusiastically explaining his additional trial he was planning on subjecting one of the boys to if he survived the first, one unfortunate Martho. To Adair's disgust, he started explaining how he wanted to experiment with giving the boy mutagens harvested from a bruxae to potentially increase speed and durability, but was worried about potentially monstrous effects on the boys physiology. The conversation was polite and unemotional - Adair wanted to scream. He quickly took his leave, feeling waves of nausea rising. Vesemir gave him an apologetic look, but said nothing. Piotr stood and followed his brother out the room. 

They exited the meeting room, and found themselves back in the dining hall - the last remnants of the meal being cleared away as they watched. 

“Well,” Piotr said falsely, in a paltry attempt at a cheerful voice, “they listened to you at least.”

Adair heaved a sigh and mentally attempted to shove his roiling frustration, anger and sorrow as far down as he could. “I’m not sure it’ll do much good if the mages do decide to attack.” 

“We’ve all killed magic users Adair, you worry too much.” His brother was aiming for reassurance and solidly missed the mark. 

“Maybe I do worry too much,” Adair conceded reluctantly, “but we’re all still alive, all six of us, so maybe there’s something to be said for worrying,” he finished, pointedly looking at Piotr.

Piotr gave him a slight smile before prompting, “are you alright?”

“No I’m not fucking alright,” Adair bit out. “They’ve known Osbert for centuries, and to most of them his death was nothing. You heard Lantamir. And then Barmin starts talking about his sick experiments, on that kid, like its the _highlight_ of his fucking year, and they’re all just so interested.” His irritation at their reaction was bubbling away like boiling lava, building and waiting to explode. Adair breathed heavily, clamping down on his anger, and making his voice steady. “Chatting away like the conversation isn’t literally talking about killing kids, or…” he paused before clenching his fists and glaring at the ground, “or doing to some of them what _he_ did to Geralt.”

Piotr frowned and crossed his arms. “Geralt’s so much better than he was,” he said defensively, and this was true, Geralt had worked really hard. It had taken time, but he could often recognise his own emotions, despite a consistent lack of bodily responses, and he even showed how he was feeling on a semi-regular occurrence with small deliberate body language choices, and occasionally expressions. He'd also worked really hard on picking up the subtle signs of other people's emotions, practising them regularly with the same attitude he took to drilling his sword forms - and now, as a consequence, he could recognise what his brothers felt more often than not. But to most humans, who didn't know him, he still came across as inhumanly emotionless, callous and unfeeling.

“It took _thirty_ fucking years for him to get to where he is now!” Adair shot back, “And he still gets confused sometimes Pete, with people that aren’t us. That's thirty years of not understanding his own fucking feelings, that he can't get back." And this was true also. Geralt was a man of few words, not necessarily because he didn’t have anything to say, but often because he was trying to work out all the things not said in conversations, things that were glaringly obvious to the others. He knew with his brothers it largely didn’t matter what he said or did and knew them well enough to anticipate their responses. But the additional trials, had not just distanced and dulled Geralt’s emotions like it had with the rest of them, but instead had formed a chasm between them, meaning they were like an ancient language, half translated that he had to work exceptionally hard to puzzle out in every single interaction. Adair knew it often exhausted his brother, and he hated that they did that to him. 

Adair felt his anger grow, and he spat out, "Thirty years of thinking he was an inhuman freak - you've heard what the elders say about him!” And Piotr had. Discussions of how it was _such a shame_ the boy was given those extra trials, how _uncanny_ that the boy from Rivia never smiles, how he was _too unsettling_ with his dead eyes - like they weren't the ones who'd done that to him in the first place. 

“You’re leaving again, aren’t you?” Piotr spoke flatly, factually. 

“I hate this place.” Adair admitted wretchedly. “I will come back and visit, I promise, it won’t be another thirty years,” he swore to his brother, “but I can’t stay here.”

Piotr nodded, “I understand, little brother.”

“I don’t think you do Piotr.” At his brother’s questioning look, Adair explained further, “When they were talking at the end, about those fucking experiments, all I could think was that maybe it wouldn’t be bad if the mages did burn this place to the ground.” At Piotr’s shocked look, Adair explained tiredly, “because at least that would mean no more kids would die in fucking agony, for some twisted alchemist that doesn’t give a shit if they live or die.” 

Piotr didn’t know what to say, there wasn’t much he could. Not really. So instead, he pulled his younger brother into a tight hug, helped him with his bags, snuck as many healing potions as he could into Adair’s shoulder bag, and walked him to the gates of Kaer Morhen. “Stay safe,” he ordered Adair, and stood, watching his brother’s silhouette, fade into the dark.


	11. A Keep Full of Bodies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adair barely makes it three days before he is alerted to danger at the Kaer through a vision of Piotr's death.

An image burst across Adair’s vision. He was midstride and felt himself falling, but he couldn't move his limbs in time to to break his fall. Smoke billowed, children screamed, and the scent of magic was thick in the air. The keep was a crumbling mess filled with lights denoting vicious magic, and in amongst the swirling chaos, Adair saw a chunk of wall land exactly where Piotr and four children were gathered. 

He came to choking on his own breath, face in the dirt, screaming Piotr's name - unable to see through the curtain of tears. 

That had been nearly forty hours ago. He was too late, too far away from the witcher’s home to be of any assistance, and he’d known that the minute he turned back and started the race to Kaer Morhen. He knew he’d be far too late. He'd always been lucky up till now, managing to cross vast terrains in small amounts of time. Piotr had died sixteen hours ago. He carried that knowledge like a gaping wound in his chest. But Adair had turned back anyway - if only to bury the bodies. The elders hadn’t listened, hadn’t taken the threat seriously. ‘Spring Cleaning’ indeed.

As he came round the corner of the path that had lead him to the Keep just weeks earlier, he couldn’t help the panicked, almost pained, desperate intake of breath at the sight. The castle had been mangled, it was broken and battered. It looked as if they'd weaponised a tornado. Chunks of wall lay here and there, hectically scattered and painted black with smoke and red with something else Adair would not let himself consider. Kaer Morhen was ablaze. 

Bodies lay, littering the stone path up to the shattered and bent portcullis. In the aftermath of the battle, there was a haunting quiet that seemed almost oppressive in nature. Even the wildlife was silent - almost appearing to grieve with Adair as he stood across from the keep, watching the only home he'd ever known, burn before his eyes. The devastation was thick, permeating every blackened corner of every broken wall. The utter distraction was monumental

The bodies were abundant. Faces that Adair couldn't help but recognise stared up at him. People he'd grown up with, people who'd taught him, healed him, laughed with him and shouted at him - all now extinguished. Other bodies, smaller ones - he couldn't bear to look too closely, knowing he'd recognise those too. Many, many more bodies were dressed in unfamiliar colours lay there also, and the volume of death on both sides was staggering in its incomprehensible vastness. So so many.

As Adair crossed the old stone bridge he looked down, and immediately the breath in his lungs seemed to turn around and choke him. The moat, for the first time in centuries, was full. Full of bodies that had been emptied of their souls. Bodies that, just days before, had been people, with personalities and likes and dislikes and idiosyncrasies. Now they were broken empty vessels. It was too much, but he pressed onwards, half dazed, half devastated.

Adair felt hollowed out. Like there was a thick barrier between himself and the rest of the world. Like he was seeing the scenes of such devastation before him, but through someone else's eyes. Through someone else's emotions. They were there, but just... muted. Distant. 

He stepped through the broken, twisted portcullis, into the outer grounds of Kaer Morhen. And even through his newly muted perspective, it was horrific. And it slapped Adair out of his daze and forced him into action. Because people were still alive. 

Heartbeats. Plural. As well, he could hear the cries of pain, the twitching movements, the sounds of agonised panting.

Snapping into motion, Adair rand towards the closest source of noise. A boy. One leg missing, the stump bleeding sluggishly through a poorly made tourniquet. Running forward, and throwing himself to his knees, Adair examined the boy, re-did the torniquet and rummaged through his healers kit, murmuring quietly to the boy. "I've got you, I've got you. You're going to be okay." Lifting him, out of the mud, blood and assorted debris, and ignoring his whimpers, he ran the boy back out of the keep, away from questionable integrity of the wall's structure and the risk of fire. Laying the boy down on patch of wooden decking out in the sun, Adair grabbed his phial of swallow and adminstered two drops. It would save him, although the leg was gone. The boy, at the immediate noticeable absence of pain, dropped into thankful unconsciousness. And Adair ran back into the keep.

Following his ears and nose like a bloodhound Adair located every still beating heart, every still bleeding survivor. Most were the more resilient witchers, but the few invaders he located, hanging onto life, he snapped the necks quickly and moved on. Most of the still-living witchers, if they survived the next few hours, would suffer from life altering injuries including missing limbs, horrific burns and magical attacks. He lay them all out gently, ripping up a cleanish blanket for wound rags, and using dirty recovered leather as improvised tourniquets - relying on potions to prevent infections. The healing potion Piotr had given him just weeks earlier, he saved for the life threatening injuries, but that still had potential to heal. Those that Adair judged too far gone, he moved into the sun, offered water and rags, and an unbeliever's prayer to Melitele. It was brutal, and arguably inhumane, particularly with the children, but Adair knew most would die, potion or no potion - he had limited stocks and no way of making more. He had to save it for the people that could potentially live.

It was hard. There were less heartbeats now. Adair started to pile up the corpses of the witchers on a cart in the centre of the courtyard, in order to reach the still breathing few bodies that were left. Moving small still bodies away from ones that still had life in them was almost undoable, but Adair was the only one who could it, the only one still standing. Some of the faces were hard to see. Varin. Elgar. Some of the alchemists. It was when Adair pulled another small body up, laid it carefully with the rest, and turned to see Vesemir's face - eyes closed with a stuttered fluttering heartbeat - that he let the sobs finally overtake him. Clearing the dirt and blood and dust away from the face of the only father figure he ever knew, administering a dose of Piotr’s potion, he cried and cried.

"Boy," Vesemir's voice was hoarse and hitched, his hand shot up, grabbing uselessly in the air, trying to reach for Adair's arm and blinking blearily, concern etched on his face. "Adair, it's not safe," he was cut off by a hacking cough. You've got to run boy." His eyes, although unfocused, were wide and scared. "The mages," he gasped, "Edvass."

"I know Vesemir, I know," Adair soothed, "they're gone now."

The sun had moved two hours onwards by the time he'd cleared out the keep grounds and courtyards. Fires that had long burned themselves out left acrid smoking spirals stretching high into the sky. The bodies of the wolf school, he laid together in the grass in the grounds past the outer courtyard, apprentices, witchers, and elders together. Bracing himself for something terrible, Adair pushed the gently swinging door to the main building and stepped inside the Kaer.

The great feasting hall was a half dead, decomposing skeleton of a room. Blood splattered, splintered furniture, ripped pages, and so so many bodies. But. There was movement. Towards the eastern corner of the room, past a blackened hole where the stone had literally melted into a crater, lightning and fire was being thrown in echoing crackles. Two witcher apprentices, and a witcher that took to the path just a couple of years after Adair had, were dodging the sparks and lunging with their blades at a hooded figure.

Swearing under his breath Adair silently padded closer, drawing his silver dagger silently.

The mage was barely moving, propped up against a column, using one hand to throw increasingly weak bolts at the boys.

Sneaking to the edge or the room, working his way round silently, Adair crept up towards the column that that the mage had his back too, tucked in a nook round the corner. He crept closer, edging till he was just behind him, round the corner, close enough to smell the fragrant perfume. Grabbing out with his hand, he flung himself round the corner to the surprise of the witchers. Grasping the mage by the neck, with the same hand pushed backwards with the sign of igni straight into the mage’s throat. At the same time, he jammed the knife into the mages vulnerable back, up through the man's neck, severing his spine and dropping him immediately. The mage fell like a rock.

"Oh thank the gods." The boy that spoke crashed to his knees, openly weeping, whilst the other swayed and fell into a sitting position. The young witcher collapsed backwards to sit on a barrel, all of them panting uncontrollably, shaking with exertion.

"That was the last." The witcher said hoarsely. "The last magical fucker." He shivered, eyes bulging black, blackened veins cutting stark lines through his ashy white skin. Adair knew that look. Potion overdose. Extreme toxicity levels. He silently handed the younger witcher some Golden Oriole, honestly not knowing whether it would be enough to fight the obvious signs of toxicity posioning.

Adair wished he could give them some time to recover, but this was urgent. "Are there any stocks of Raffards? For the survivors?"

The sobbing apprentice looked up sharply. "There are survivors? He stumbled through the sounds of the words.

“Very few,” Adair admitted quietly. "I’ve put them outside the gates. In the sun." His fellow witcher eyed him, understanding what that meant. He gave himself a moment to catch his breath before hauling himself to his feet, getting out a few bottles of potions. Slowly, determinedly, he turned and started to make his way gingerly towards the door, clearly favouring his left leg. 

The crying boy wiped his face and visibly pulled himself together. Pulling a couple of phials of the light potion out of a bag, he yanked the other boy to his feet. "Master P-Piotr has been teaching us how to heal," he told Adair seriously, voice hitching in his throat. "We know what to do."

At the name of Adair's brother, a chasmic roaring grief opened up in his chest and misery seared through him. Gods. Piotr. He couldn't think of it now, he didn't have the time to indulge in his grief when there were more important things to do.

Quickly, and with startling efficiency, he started going through the rooms finding many many more bodies. If he’d thought that it had been horrific outside that was nothing compared to the inner walls. Entire rooms were nothing but blackened husks with gnarled twisted chunks of bone. But the most obvious source of destruction was the mutagen room. Nothing was left. They had burnt every record, every experiment, every phial, every ingredient, every person. It had been clearly targeted. This was not just an attack, this was an eradication, and a prevention of making more witchers. Adair stood in the room that had caused so much death, so much destruction, the room that represented the deaths of thousands of children, and the birth of every witcher he knew, and couldn't even put a name to everything he was feeling. It was too much.

In the grounds he found sixteen almost definite survivors, nine maybes and around twenty who were dying or near death. In the keep there were only three still alive, one of which would not last much longer, judging by the blood loss. Following his pattern that he'd practised up till now, he located the still beating hearts, and ran to where the younger witcher and the witcher apprentices were administering potions, bandages, tourniquets and comfort. In the time it took Adair to clear through the keep, six more had died.

And in one fell swoop, the Wolf School was gone.

Once he'd cleared the rooms of any survivors and had brought them outside, he started on the bodies. He planned to lay the wolf school out to rest with the others, they could think about burying them later, and the invaders he stacked into a pile a few hundred metres from the keep, downwind, and began a fire. The boys had made a makeshift hospital tent, and the survivors were in good hands. Adair, started the long and more awful task of going room by room, and recovering the witcher's bodies, or in some cases, the pieces, keeping an eye out for Piotr's body specifically. He knew where his brother lay, he had seen it. The Western spiralling staircase had collapsed on him, there would be no surviving that.

Without really much conscious thought Adair found his feet had led him to the Western corridor. As he drew closer to the crumpled stone that essentially formed his brother's tomb, he felt a building choking pressure seeming to press on him from all sides. It was an unbearable weight. Foolishly perhaps, Adair had thought that the apprentice trials had trained him to expect loss, that he’d expected grief in his life, and that he’d be able to deal with it when it inevitably came calling for him and his brothers, but when faced with the loss of Piotr he found himself floundering in the face of it. 

His pain was overwhelming and he couldn't process it. The grief was incomprehensible. He found himself stuck, frozen, staring at the stone of the collapsed staircase, utterly struck silent, with no way of moving forwards. He had been staring at at the stone for more than five minutes before he managed to shake himself out of it, and force himself to take several steps forward. The pressing sensation seem to grow, the closer he got to the stones. It was bizarre, almost physical. Adair drew closer, feeling the pressure on his lungs, and instantly realised - it wasn't his overwhelming emotional response at all. It was tangible. It was chaos - and he could feel it.

Magic. Someone had erected a magical shield of such force, of pure chaos, of so much power that he could still feel the residual effects of it nearly a day later. It was coming from underneath the fallen staircase. It was coming from what Adair would guess to be Piotr’s final resting place. Frantically, not evening daring to allow himself the luxury of hoping, Adair ran forward and began to move the stone with a desperate speed, he hadn't even imagined himself capable of.


End file.
